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Accepted Paper:
Indigenous Knowledge of Rajbanshi agriculturists of northern West Bengal, India
Ashok Das Gupta (University of North Bengal )
Paper short abstract:
This paper is a small ethnographic documentation of Indigenous Knowledge of Rajbanshi agriculturists of northern West Bengal, India.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is a small ethnographic documentation of Indigenous Knowledge of Rajbanshi agriculturists of northern West Bengal, India. Rajbanshi is a caste-community overlap and as a huge social fold intake various heterogeneous groups in plains and uplands of sub-Himalayan northern west Bengal state of India.
Their informal experimentation, trial and error, folk life, tradition, cultural symbols, generation-wise intellectual reasoning are equally important to gather scattered indigenous knowledge traits and their cognate Indigenous Knowledge System extending from mode of production and division of labour to their structure and super structure. This is basically a qualitative study and will highlight various services by both Rajbanshi males and females to attain organic cultivation and management of biodiversity. North Bengal jungles, mountains and agrarian lands are biodiversity hotpots and like various other indigenous communities Rajbanshis show their contribution in production and food preservation. They have developed a lifestyle that may look poor but actually fitting into local environments. Their kitchen garden, highland and lowland cultivations and use of forest and water resources and cattle hordes cum poultry develop together a complex system that can serve a wider public.
Indigenous knowledge and sustainable development (IUAES Commission on Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development)
Session 1 Wednesday 7 August, 2013, -