Gender and Resource Management among the Khasi Community of Meghalaya India

Abstract

newline Resource can be defined as a physical existence attached to human activity as well as newlineculture. Every culture is associated with nature within a specific cultural boundary. newlineNatural resources can be redefined in a specific cultural ecology for the purposes of newlinehuman need whereas cultural resources are more focused on its own creativity. newlineCultural resources are all unique and non renewable intangible (spiritual) and newlinematerial phenomena (natural made by humans) that are associated with human newline(cultural) activities. This includes sites, structures and artefacts to which an individual newlineor group attaches some value with regard to its historic archaeological, architectural, newlinespiritual, and human (cultural) developmentquot (Anton and Vollenhoven, 2018). Cultural newlineresources are of different types; Archaeological resources, Historical structures, newlineCultural Landscapes, Ethnographic Resources and Museum Objects. Ethnic newlinecommunities are attached to their resources which are maintained through generations newlinewith customary rules and regulations (National Park Service, 2015. www.nps.gov). newlineIn North Eastern India, most of the parts including the state of Meghalaya, among the newlineindigenous communities, forest has been an important source of livelihood. Forest newlineprovides them food, fruit, fuel, fodder, timber and medicine. The tribal people lived in newlineforest for thousands of years depending on gathering from forests through close and newlinesustained interactions with nature. Interacting forest since long time, the rural people newlineequipped deep knowledge of conservation and management of natural resources. They newlinehave adapted new modes of production to maintain forest life. There are two main newlinesubsistence mode of food production i.e. shifting cultivation (Jhum) or mixed newlinecultivation, and horticultural plantations.