ABSTRACT
The matrilineal system was already being hollowed out by the pressure of knowledge of alternative systems that privileged men, and the gradual weakening of communal dependence on subsistence agriculture, and related trading activities. While women in Meghalaya have experienced the negative impact of mining, this has also been accompanied by a sense of empowerment for some women that they derive from the mining economy in terms of higher income, access to modern amenities, and consumption behaviour. Meghalaya’s experiences of changing gender relations and masculine dispositions of the mining settlements contribute to the existing literature on gender and mining. Meghalaya also offers a different account on the heteronormative leadership of men in the family sphere which is different from the typical social structures of the rest of India as well as most mining communities internationally. Women’s negotiations have been complex than that of men because for women, there was a negative trade-off between mining and their traditional rights.
