Contribution short abstract

The study argues that conservation-induced displacement set in motion processes that redefine people’s relations to land and environment as observed for forest dependent communities like the Sahariya villages displaced from and resettled outside the Kuno National Park in central India 25 years ago.

Contribution long abstract

Conservation-induced displacement and resettlement offer conditions that force communities to adjust their traditional ways of life to new constraints. Certain livelihoods become difficult to sustain while new opportunities emerge that provide sustenance. A transition in livelihoods is marked primarily by loss in landholdings and access to forests that redefine relations in the community and with the environment. Contemporary research on fortress conservation point to the ways in which communities try to contest and reclaim lost territory however, for ‘voluntary’ displacement and resettlement processes of south Asia, the struggle is that of adjusting to new environments. This study is about life in a resettled Sahariya village that was displaced 25 years ago from the Kuno National Park in central India. Through an ethnographic study over 10 months from September 2025 to June 2026, this study traces the history of displacement and resettlement over the last two decades. It shows how conservation-induced displacement led to – (a) new patterns of farming and land ownership, (b) shift from forest economy to labour economy, and (c) an amalgamation of rituals, symbols and practices that represent both the new and the old worlds. The study argues that conservation-induced displacement set in motion processes that redefine people’s relations to land and environment as observed for forest dependent communities like the Sahariya.