Presentation short abstract

The communicative practices of an autonomous women's collective in India demonstrates the patriarchal and epistemic power asymmetries they face in media making. Simultaneously they demonstrate the strategies to subvert such power to claim expertise about environmental justice.

Presentation long abstract

Alternative media is increasingly a strategic tool in place-based movements and environmental conflicts seeking justice for their communities and for their ecology. This paper examines how Maati Collective, an autonomous women’s collective in Uttarakhand, India uses alternative media to share Indigenous and Dalit women’s perspectives on environmental justice and development alternatives. Such ecosystem women have barely any representation in mainstream media and in decision-making spaces despite their lives being socio-spiritually linked to ecosystems. Therefore, alternative media use is a strategy to claim environmental justice – distributive, participatory and recognition justice. Alternative media is closely aligned with the goals of environmental justice because of its focus on citizen participation and democracy, giving voice to counter-hegemonic concerns Foxwell-Norton, 2015). By focusing on women’s navigation of power asymmetries while using alternative media, this paper examines “How do grassroots narratives challenge (or reproduce) the narrative of the digital divide(s)?”.

Maati’s experience demonstrates a constant push and pull of power. Women challenge deeply patriarchal norms to enter media making through strategic collectivisation. They also negotiate epistemic injustice from media and funding collaborators with more cultural capital than them. Alternative media is simultaneously a tool to subvert these forms of power, because it enables them to position themselves as knowledge experts of bio-cultural diversity and of transformative initiatives. By addressing power asymmetries in media use, this research encourages alternative media and environmental justice movements to actively include more narratives from indigenous and Dalit women on environmental justice and alternatives to development.