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Paper short abstract

This paper explores women’s narratives in Mahila Mandals of Shiv Nath village, Himachal Pradesh, through ethnographic filmmaking, highlighting visual ethnography’s role in examining their socioeconomic mobility, resilience, and collective resistance, as documented in Pots, Pans, and Politics.

Paper long abstract

Ethnographic filmmaking and other visual ethnographic methods have proved significant in anthropological research. Everyday life and the lived experience of women have often been undervalued, as their contributions to the local and household economy are frequently overlooked. In a multi-caste village with women from different class groups, the critical reflexive methodologies offered by visual ethnography become significant, particularly as women come together as a single group in women’s collectives. This paper explores the nuanced narratives of women in Mahila Mandals, which were established in the 1980s through an independent women’s movement for the empowerment of rural women in Himachal Pradesh, India. It emphasizes the importance of ethnographic filmmaking methods in bringing out the narratives of women across different intersections of the village and their varied experiences and purposes within the same women’s collective. The film-Pots, Pans, and Politics focuses on the narratives of members of Mahila Mandal and traces the role played by the collective for the social-economic mobility of the women of Shiv Nath. It also documents the everyday lives of rural women in Shiv Nath, who, despite being affected by issues of caste, class, and capital, continue to grow resilient through various forms of resistance.