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Judith Pettigrew/Ethno-Political Concerns of Rural
Gurung Women
Judith Pettigrew's paper considered the question
of social inclusion within ethnic organisations,
as viewed by rural Gurungs, and compared their
responses with the opinions of urban ethnic elites.
In her presentation, she discussed her latest
findings from conversations with rural Gurung
women, especially those of middle age who are
active in a village women's committee. Pettigrew
argued that in her study area (a village within
the Annapurna Conservation Area Project [ACAP]
region), women were renegotiating the political
space available to them.
Interviewed on issues of political, social and
cultural and economic inclusion, the women expressed
strong views. They said there was a need for positive
discrimination in political institutions, the
inclusion of the Gurung language at the national
level on par with Nepali, the elimination of cultural
and religious discrimination, and of discrimination
in economic participation as job opportunities
for Gurungs remain limited. They said that while
the income effects of economic exclusion may be
partially mitigated by the jobs afforded to the
community in the British and Indian armies, employment
in foreign armies poses other problems of inclusion.
Exploring the linkages between rural Gurung
women and the (largely) urban male ethnic activists
who represent their concerns, Pettigrew found
a high degree of coherence in the concerns of
the former as articulated in the demands of the
latter. But, while the women empathised with the
activists on larger ethnic issues, they felt a
sense of grievance in cases of gender-specific
representation.
Attributing their growing awareness of their
political potential to the ACAP, they saw the
project as having encouraged them to discover
their capabilities to organise, to run committees
and to lead 'just as well as men'. They said that
they had needed to be trained and given direction,
to be encouraged and included in decision-making,
which is what the ACAP provided. Now, they feel
that positive discrimination in decision-making
bodies should be extended to gender-specific positive
discrimination. There is a tension here with janjati
activists, who believe that they represent fairly
the interests of women, and that gender discrimination,
in fact, does not exist in the ethnic communities.
But Pettigrew finds that in normative practices
of prescribed behaviour and constraints of the
marriage system-which are internalised and perpetuated
by women-women are largely excluded from decision-making
roles in the public arena. Comparing a Pokhara-based
Gurung organisation, where women are involved
at the fund-raising and support level, with the
women in her village field-site, she discerned
a difference in attitude. While the women who
had been trained by the ACAP were beginning to
lay claim to greater political space (even though
for now this is limited to women-only organisations),
the middle aged householder women she spoke to
in Pokhara had not questioned their non-decision
making roles.
Pettigrew ended with the prescription that the
janjati elites need to further address the question
of inclusiveness.
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