ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, India has witnessed a heightened spate of “land wars”, between rural citizens and state-led development projects. Scholarship on land dispossession in India frequently highlights the significance of cross-sectional alliances built in anti–land grabbing struggles. What remains missing, however, are studies on how specific axes of difference and identity shape the dynamics of such rural movements. Focussing on women’s engagement in such struggles, this chapter asks—how does gender shape the dynamics of collective action against land dispossession? Drawing on existing studies of collective action against land dispossession and interviews with women activists involved in anti–land grabbing struggles in two Indian states (Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh), I discuss three key themes linked to gendered participation in anti–land grabbing movements. These are social reproduction, women’s leadership in collective action and transformative outcomes generated due to participation in anti-dispossession struggles. Combining insights from feminist political ecology and with feminist critical agrarian studies, this chapter theorizes the relevance of the wider political institutional context and its connections with gendered resistance against land grabbing. By focusing on the gendered political subjectivities that emerge in land grabbing resistance, this chapter seeks to broaden our understanding of how land grabbing is embedded in gendered social relations.
