This paper is based on an 'action research' work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in... more This paper is based on an 'action research' work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the 'gender-labor continuum in household spaces', where I, along with a group of young women and men (who are within the age group of sixteen to twenty-two) rethought research as 'co-research with community' (and not 'on' community), methodology (as 'actioning research' and 'researching action') in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. We together worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men. Through the mixed group of young women and men, we tried to reorient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). Such experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of engendering labor sharing in household spaces brought me to the threshold of questioning existing set of methodologies; or perhaps the questioning of methodologies brought me to the question of praxis. The overdetermined experience of 'knowing the researched' and the 'being of the researcher' are perhaps not enough for a methodology to be feminist. One perhaps needed to engage in transformative social praxis with women (and men). One needed to engage collaboratively with the community in the researching of the problem and the actioning of research findings for a possible feminist future (in this case the question of labor sharing). This paper shall argue that such a feminist methodology also calls for a questioning of the strict compartmentalization of disciplines, which has also made me (re)think binaries like natural science/social science, fact/value, objective/subjective. The paper in the process asks: What is knowledge? What makes knowledge possible? Is 'attachment' a hurdle to the production of knowledge? Or does it facilitate knowledge, a different kind of knowledge, albeit?
This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond Adivasi village in... more This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond Adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the ‘gender-labor continuum in household spaces’, where I, along with a group of young women and men (who are within the age group of sixteen to twenty-two) re-thought research as ‘co-research with community’ (and not on community) and methodology (as actioning research and researching action) in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. Together, we worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men in the household. Through this mixed group of young women and men, we tried to re-orient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). The experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of en...
Abstract: This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi ... more Abstract: This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the ‘gender-labor continuum in household spaces’, where I, along with a group of young women and men (aged from sixteen to twenty-two) re-thought research as ‘co-research with community’ (and not on community), methodology (as actioning research and researching action) in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. We together worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men. Through the mixed group of young women and men, we tried to re-orient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). Such experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of engendering labor sharing in househ...
This paper is bifocal. On the one hand, the paper makes space for praxis in research. On the othe... more This paper is bifocal. On the one hand, the paper makes space for praxis in research. On the other hand, it synchronously argues that such research cannot be engendered without a turn to the question of gender‘ or without researching the (nature of) the presence and absence of the feminine‘ in philosophy, particularly, in methodology. The paper thus, explores two related questions – the question of praxis and the question of the feminine – in their mutual imbrication. Such an imbrication makes space for the turn to Practical Philosophy. The paper makes an effort to show that they are rather braided, how they form a Moebius1.
This paper is based on an 'action research' work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in... more This paper is based on an 'action research' work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the 'gender-labor continuum in household spaces', where I, along with a group of young women and men (who are within the age group of sixteen to twenty-two) rethought research as 'co-research with community' (and not 'on' community), methodology (as 'actioning research' and 'researching action') in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. We together worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men. Through the mixed group of young women and men, we tried to reorient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). Such experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of engendering labor sharing in household spaces brought me to the threshold of questioning existing set of methodologies; or perhaps the questioning of methodologies brought me to the question of praxis. The overdetermined experience of 'knowing the researched' and the 'being of the researcher' are perhaps not enough for a methodology to be feminist. One perhaps needed to engage in transformative social praxis with women (and men). One needed to engage collaboratively with the community in the researching of the problem and the actioning of research findings for a possible feminist future (in this case the question of labor sharing). This paper shall argue that such a feminist methodology also calls for a questioning of the strict compartmentalization of disciplines, which has also made me (re)think binaries like natural science/social science, fact/value, objective/subjective. The paper in the process asks: What is knowledge? What makes knowledge possible? Is 'attachment' a hurdle to the production of knowledge? Or does it facilitate knowledge, a different kind of knowledge, albeit?
This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond Adivasi village in... more This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond Adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the ‘gender-labor continuum in household spaces’, where I, along with a group of young women and men (who are within the age group of sixteen to twenty-two) re-thought research as ‘co-research with community’ (and not on community) and methodology (as actioning research and researching action) in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. Together, we worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men in the household. Through this mixed group of young women and men, we tried to re-orient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). The experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of en...
Abstract: This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi ... more Abstract: This paper is based on an ‘action research’ work (in Mardapoti, a largely Gond adivasi village in Chhattisgarh, India) on the ‘gender-labor continuum in household spaces’, where I, along with a group of young women and men (aged from sixteen to twenty-two) re-thought research as ‘co-research with community’ (and not on community), methodology (as actioning research and researching action) in the context of transforming the extant structure of the sexual division of labor in the village and the household. We together worked towards a deconstructive relation with the problem of the scarcity of water to arrive, in turn, at the underlying problem of labor sharing among women and men. Through the mixed group of young women and men, we tried to re-orient the young men to participate in household labor (especially that of fetching water from faraway sources). Such experience of immersion (not fieldwork) in community contexts and the practice of engendering labor sharing in househ...
This paper is bifocal. On the one hand, the paper makes space for praxis in research. On the othe... more This paper is bifocal. On the one hand, the paper makes space for praxis in research. On the other hand, it synchronously argues that such research cannot be engendered without a turn to the question of gender‘ or without researching the (nature of) the presence and absence of the feminine‘ in philosophy, particularly, in methodology. The paper thus, explores two related questions – the question of praxis and the question of the feminine – in their mutual imbrication. Such an imbrication makes space for the turn to Practical Philosophy. The paper makes an effort to show that they are rather braided, how they form a Moebius1.
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