Making it work: women, land and labour in West Karbi Anglong, Assam

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article seeks to understand how the deepening logic of neoliberal governmentality transforms the lives, labour and access to resources such as land, for women in West Karbi Anglong, Assam, Northeast India. It explores new forms of social (in)equality and mobility in gender relations and community dynamics in Sixth Schedule districts, tracing the evolving conjuncture between community, state and the market. We approach this question in two ways: first, how the neoliberal market rationality reconstitutes and is reconstituted by existing customs of inheritance, patterns of labour, notions of community and belonging, and gender relations; second, the strategies that women adopt in a context where forms of women’s work and modes of access to resources such as land are going through rapid changes. The aim is to encourage critical reflections on women’s access/rights to land and their labour in the Sixth Schedule areas, and what changes with the neoliberal turn.