This paper documents the traditional agricultural practices of Chuktia Bhunjia tribe of Odisha, India, and attempts to comprehend as to how they negotiate with their ecosystem in order to ensure sustainable agricultural production and livelihood. Data, collected using interview and observation, reveal that agricultural practices of the Chuktia Bhunjia are revolved around local ecology, beliefs, rituals and knowledge. The knowledge-based intercropping, agroforestry, crop rotation, crop diversity, rain-water harvesting and management of soil fertility are important domains involved in their agricultural practices that are found to as a function of long-term observation and experiments, and are reported to have been culturally reproduced through self-engagement and ritualistic practices associated with agriculture. Their agriculture is assumed to have significance in maintaining the soil fertility and moisture, and reducing greenhouse gases and enhancing carbon sequestration whereby to balance the landscape. The agroforestry-based agricultural practices, coupled with belief, ritual and technology, is also found to make their agriculture cost-effective and ensure conservation of ecological system. Climate change–driven agricultural decision-making among them is found to as a tool not only to arrest their crop failure but also to ensure sustainable food production and livelihood. Yet, the expected evacuation of inhabitant including Chuktia Bhunjia due to ‘tiger-project’ is assumed to be a threat to their agricultural knowledge and other cultural domains. Therefore, owing to the livelihood implication of traditional agriculture, any attempt to integrate their agricultural knowledge base with scientific knowledge would ensure sustainability of both ecology and livelihood together.
Anthropology is primarily a field science, as a field provides the basic platform for critical scrutiny of ideas and theories of the discipline. Fieldwork is also an extremely indispensable tool to understand the culture of the “observed.” Magnificent outcomes of fieldwork in the hands of Malinowski, Mead, Evans-Pritchard, Barth, Firth, Bohannan, Levi-Strauss, Powdermaker, and others have been instrumental in the development of various discourses in anthropology and allied disciplines. Contributions of Indian anthropologists in field studies are also no less significant, as these reflect renewed interest in empiricism and the reflexive understanding of the culture of the “others.” But nowadays, fieldwork is getting less importance in western as well as in Indian academics. In this article, the author has tried to critically examine various issues in connection with the present days’ fieldwork enterprise, which is getting a diminishing importance.
A society cannot develop without women’s equal participation in the decision-making process within the family as well as in the society. Unquestionably, a woman can do this only when she becomes empowered at least to some extent to have control over resources. Women empowerment is a concept that enables women to enhance their status in their family as well as in society and helps to take active participation in every sphere of social aspects. Based on a cross-sectional study among 110 ever-married women of the Lodha tribe, an ex-criminal tribe, in an Indian village, we have tried to find out whether some socio-cultural factors like education, family type, and earning opportunity influence women’s decision-making capacity, and thereby, their empowerment or not. The decision-making capacity was assessed with reference to eight specific socio-cultural dimensions, _viz, _education, marriage, family planning, children’s schooling, incurring expenditure, shopping, going outside, and going to hospital. The data of the earner women were compared with those of a control group who were not involved in any kind of earning pursuit. The study reveals that the level of participation of women in the decision-making process from various household perspectives was hardly satisfactory. Majority of the study participants could not get chance to put their decisions on the family matters selected for the study. The findings further show that women’s participation in Self Help Group activities and/or involvement as wage labourers play an effective mechanism to enhance women’s decision-making capacity within family. It is also found that age, education, family type, and earning opportunity are significantly associated with the level of participation in the decision-making process.
Anthropology is primarily a field science as the field provides the basic platform for critical scrutiny of ideas and theories of the discipline. Fieldwork is also an extremely indispensable tool to understand the culture of the ‘observed’. Magnificent outcomes of fieldwork in the hands of Malinowski, Mead, Evans-Pritchard, Barth, Firth, Bohannan, Levi-Strauss, Powdermaker, and others have been instrumental in the development of various discourses in anthropology and allied disciplines. Contributions of Indian anthropologists in field studies are also no less significant as these reflect renewed interest in empiricism and the reflexive understanding of the culture of the ‘others’. But nowadays fieldwork is getting less importance in western as well as in Indian academics. In this article, I have tried to critically examine various issues in connection with the present days’ fieldwork enterprise which is getting a diminishing importance.
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