Genderscapes

Even in a realm that would seem to be as far removed from issues of gender as natural resource management, gender bias is pernicious and persistent, especially in India. Genderscapes looks at the reasons for this bias from a number of angles, including the socialization of attitudes, the shaping of community ideologies, and the construction of disciplines and research methodologies.

Sumi Krishna puts forward the novel concept of "genderscapes" to reflect the totality of women's life worlds, and she builds her use of the concept on a group of rich case studies, including the caring practices of forest-dwellers, women's knowledge of biodiversity, and their widespread responsibility for farming and food production. Women's economic needs cannot be separated from their sociopolitical interests, Krishna shows – and only by looking at them as a whole can we solve the problem of discrimination.