The Role of Women as Guardians of Indigenous Ecological Practices: An Exploratory Analysis of Khasi and Naga Communities in NorthEast India

In the North-East regions in India, there has existed a close interaction between the people and the forest, land, water, and seasons in nature itself. Nature is not perceived as a resource for use or exploitation but is deeply embedded in the socio-cultural traditions and beliefs. Within indigenous systems of ecological knowledge and practices, women have traditionally played an important role as custodians of day-to-day ecological knowledge and as key agents in its transmission across generations. This paper focuses on the role of Khasi women in Meghalaya and Naga women in Nagaland. The significance of this study is the fact that the changing socio-economic conditions and the increasing impact of the external market forces pose threats to the continuity of traditional systems of ecological knowledge. This is because, in the Khasi culture, values assigned to ecology are in the form of nature-centric belief systems, in addition to the community managed sacred forest areas, also known as Khlaw Kyntang. However, in the Naga culture, values assigned to ecology are interwoven with agriculture-dependent lifestyle rhythms. The research paper takes a qualitative, descriptive, and comparative approach based on secondary study materials from academic papers on the topic of indigenous ecology and conservation practices. The research looks into the role of women in maintaining ecological knowledge, the impact of customary institutions on women's participation and decision making powers, and how women transform indigenous ecological practices when faced with changes in social circumstances. While there are significant differences between kinship systems and resource governance structures among the Khasi and Naga, the paper makes the case that women are key players in the maintenance of both communities' biocultural traditions, although they remain relatively invisible within conservation and development discourses.