Multilayered Consequences in a Turmoil Zone: A Study of Lived Experiences of Women in Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

Kashmir in the popular imagination is seen through the lens of excessively securitized and state-centric narratives that cast a shadow over the struggles of everyday life in Kashmir. An overriding climate of conflict, natural disasters, untimely snowfall and loss of tourism (one of the mainstays of Kashmir’s economy) have phenomenally shrunk people’s choices. Weak state institutions have induced a feeling of alienation among the Kashmiri people. This qualitative study attempts to look beyond the meta-narratives of conflict and brings out micro narratives of people’s lived experiences in a turmoil zone, radiating both at the inter-generational and intra-generational level, which is eclipsed in Kashmir.