Contribution short abstract:

The research attempts to locate intersections of nomadism, gender, and marginalisation experienced by gujjar women in encounters of everyday. addressing questions of gender negotiations to pivot giving as gujjar women's relational philanthrophy in their local know-how and praxis of sisterhood.

Contribution long abstract:

Gujjars are ( semi) nomadic pastoralists and inhabit several parts of the Indian Subcontinent, having their specific traditions. These groups have faced systemic exclusion due to their migratory life practices and distinct cultural norms. The group I am researching with, constitute the third largest ethnic group in Jammu and Kashmir. Like other nomadic groups, their traditional practices of seasonal migration, rearing of livestock have undergone various changes due to urbanity and climate changes. Gujjar women face oppression, exclusion, and vulnerability due to the intersectional location of gender, and nomadism. Building on the narratives from feminist ethnography, the relationalities of women, earmarks the various forms of giving as pluralistic practices for community’s and each other’s wellbeing. The women’s caring for each other in their everyday lived experiences as a recognition to forms of giving essentially places gujjar women as enablers to create and imagine transformation to ‘giving’ perspectives. Women’s giving for each other lies in their everyday encounters of negotiation , responses to strict norms and changing contours of the nomadic homes. The gestures of giving reflect reciprocity, being there and belonging is an aspiration for wellbeing. The feminist ethnography through this paper locates praxis of sisterhood as alternate imaginings of giving; wherein the researcher listens life practices and philosophy of nomadism . The focus is to carve local know-how of women's experiences as source of knowledge rather than ‘non knowledge’ ( Devy, 2018) where wellbeing is articulated as conversation of development and nomadic way lifeworld.