Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

94 P. THAMIZOLI AND P. IGNATIUS PRABHAKAR
minority groups such as the Irulas, it is a major problem to maintain respect
for and control over their traditional knowledge and practices, while
at the same time engaging with non-traditional knowledge and asserting
the validity of new bases of identity. The lack of any documentary evidence
as authentic proof to negotiate with the institutions of the state and to
establish their cultural identity is a drawback. It is in this context that the
Tamil Nadu administration’s recognition and acceptance of ethnography,
as a tool to record particular cultural markers of tribal identity, assumes
significance. The ‘new identity’ has started helping the Irulas to develop
new relationships, institutions and to make changes in their livelihoods.
It has created major changes in the lives of Irula women due to the new
rights and assets that reduce their drudgery, enhance their active participation
in fishing activities, allow them to diversify to other economic
activities and finally gain access to and control over resources. The impact
would expand to other areas in the future, such as the government schemes
related to women’s access to livelihoods, education, health and human
rights.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge the support of the MSSRF mangrove conservation
project team; the late Professor V. Sudarsen, Department of Anthropology, Madras
University, for his active involvement in the preparation of the Irula ethnography;
Sumi Krishna and R. Rengalakshmi for their patience in going through the draft
of this chapter and for valuable comments; the Indo-Canadian Environment
Facility (ICEF), which provided financial support to the project; and finally, to
the villagers of MGR Nagar who shared with us the whole process.
REFERENCES
Chambers, R. 1997. Whose Reality Counts? Putting the First Last. London: Intermediate
Technology Publications.
Field, L.W. 1999. ‘Complications and Collaborations Anthropologists and
the “Unacknowledged Tribes” of California’, Current Anthropology, 40(2):
193–209.