Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the current internal dynamics of Adivasis identity and representation in a challenging environment of land limitation and conservation excesses in Kerala. It examines how the mobilizing strategies reshape the political identity.

Paper long abstract:

The actual debate about indigenous identities has been linked with the twofold ideas of modernity and tradition. This debate has attempted to explain how indigenous societies -the councils of tradition- represent themselves by accepting, re-signifying and incorporating cultural elements. Recalling their customary belongings, indigenous peoples in India have recognized themselves as the "first inhabitants of the land" under the uniform term of Adivasis. This formula, besides having an intricate subjective origin, has also a well-defined political objective: reclaim their denied rights and look up for equality among the castes. In Kerala, a state that hosts a vast area of ecological fragility -the Western Ghâts, an Adivasis traditional habitat- the government has established a rigorous mechanism to control these areas under the label of conservation. As a consequence, during the last years, Adivasis have focused those demands particularly in relation with land access that has become a critical issue on grounds of the neglect of their effective inclusion on the tenure system. The strategies mobilized by Adivasis to overcome this condition are heterogeneous and have shaped a particular deployment of responses from within the same communities creating fragmented political identities. These identities are correlated with the sub-caste structure that shows a well-differentiated access to land and, thus, unlike intensities of participation, claiming and protest. Which is the current political situation of Adivasis? How the means of resistance shape the political identity of the Adivasis in a context of reduced land access?