How do we unravel the complexities and contradictions of tiger conservation? People tolerate a Tiger killing cattle, but the attitudes of v...
How do we unravel the complexities and contradictions of tiger conservation? People tolerate a Tiger killing cattle, but the attitudes of villages are different from each other. Some people want to leave a forest which does not see new roads, schools and hospitals, and others would rather be shot than leave.
The history of conservation and decision-making, though, has been a lot about men. I had a hypothesis that the women would have a view different from the one held by men. When I interacted with the ladies, it was clear that their answers revolved around their children.
Though they were treated in a regressive way, the women lived in a different time period, the time of the future. They fretted about the future, and what their children would make of their future. Men tended to live in the now, with a focus on the immediate present. They wanted to know which would be the best day to carry a headload to the nearest market to bring back rice, dal and oil.
The women wanted to know what their child would do when he is ten, or where she would marry when she is sixteen. Would she make it until then?
As women spoke about...
