Gendered Landscapes of Fear and Resilience: A Feminist Political Ecology of Human-Wildlife Interfaces in Assam, India

Abstract (English)

Human-wildlife interactions (HWI) are often framed through binary narratives of 'conflict' versus 'coexistence,' obscuring the complex and nuanced socio-ecological dynamics that shape contextual lived realities. This research reframes HWI in Assam, India, using the framework of Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) with gendered power relations and intersectional identities in order to criticize hegemonic conservation paradigms in the field of ecology. Situated in the forest-agricultural mosaic of villages bordering Manas National Park, located in the northeastern state of Assam, India, the research interrogates how caste, class, and gendered labor divisions mediate experiences of environmental crises, particularly human-elephant encounters.

Drawing on preliminary fieldwork in Barengabari and Kahitama villages, the study reveals how rural women, often left as de facto household heads due to male outmigration — navigate overlapping vulnerabilities. Their daily interactions with forests (e.g., fuelwood collection, farming) heighten exposure to wildlife, while institutional exclusion from decision-making (e.g., compensation schemes, fencing policies) exacerbates precarity. Women’s narratives, such as staying awake nightly to guard crops or facing bureaucratic indifference, underscore a 'landscape of fear' shaped by gendered labor and spatial marginalization. Meanwhile, state and civil society organization (SCO) interventions, though participatory in rhetoric, frequently replicate patriarchal hierarchies by sidelining women’s knowledge in conservation planning.

Methodologically, this project integrates ethnographic immersion, participatory mapping, and intersectional analysis to map how structural inequities—ranging from caste-based access to resources to gendered policy biases—generate uneven risks and resilience. Preliminary results emphasize:
1. Asymmetries of survival: Women shoulder unseen costs (e.g., emotional labor, unacknowledged care work) of HWI, even as benefits disproportionately accrue to men.
2. Epistemic erasure: Conservation approaches tend to often universalize and homogenize "community" voices, ignoring women's situated knowledge of wildlife behavior and habitat use.
3. Intersectional invisibility: Adivasi and Bodo tribal women are subject to multiple marginalizations because of ethnic stereotypes and state-centric conservation models.
By centering subaltern experiences, this research challenges anthropocentric and androcentric epistemologies in environmental anthropology. It argues that “coexistence” cannot be decoupled from struggles for gender justice and decolonial resource governance. The FPE framework, emphasizing relational ontologies and place-based realities, offers a transformative lens to reimagine conservation as a site of epistemic redefinition—one that prioritizes pluriversal narratives and grassroots agency.

This research calls for a critical reimagining of anthropological praxis to address planetary crises by centering marginalized voices and dismantling structural inequities. It advocates for inclusive strategies that bridge ecological sustainability and social justice through decolonial methodologies—such as participatory action research and co-designed interventions—which elevate subaltern narratives and prioritize gender-responsive land rights and compensation mechanisms. By confronting caste-based land tenure systems and patriarchal norms that disproportionately push women into high-risk environmental spaces, the study underscores the urgency of embedding intersectional feminism into conservation policy and global anthropological frameworks.