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Paper short abstract

The questions that I wish to explore in this paper situate food at the centre of these ecological and capitalist transitions in Majuli. How do Mishing women navigate ecological vulnerability and capitalist threats while practising their traditional food practices?

Paper long abstract

This paper focuses on the food practices of the Mishing tribe in Majuli of Assam - one of the world’s largest human-inhabited river islands. Majuli is an interesting location - in recent years, it has been facing a significant ecological threat - soil erosion. The land area of the island is shrinking. It is home to Assam’s unique neo-Vaishnavite culture as well as the Mishing tribe. The Mishings are an indigenous community and pride themselves on their ecologically sustainable lifestyle. Food is a major part of it, and women play a significant role in their food practices. They hunt, forage and cook. The living and cooking practices are closely tied to nature. But at the same time, Majuli is a tourist hub. There is an influx of both Indian and non-Indian tourists from all over the world. As such, they face both an ecological and a capitalist threat. The questions that I wish to explore in this paper situate food at the centre of these ecological and capitalist transitions in Majuli. How do Mishing women navigate ecological vulnerability and capitalist threats while practising their traditional food practices? How do they protect their traditional indigenous knowledge in the face of such competition? Is there an intersection between the ethnic, the national and the global in how Mishing culinary identity is created? How are women defining their food-centred roles in a transitioning political economy? I wish to answer these questions using qualitative methods of enquiry like interviews, observation and ethnography.