Feminist collaboration(s) and affect: Work with pastoral women

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is based on an exploratory research study, “Understanding Pastoral Women's Work 1 ,” which attempts to make visible the embodied and lived experiences of pastoral women and their work in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. In understanding the lifeworld of pastoral women, this paper delves deeper into the processes of doing research through a collaborative and feminist methodology. We have attempted to revisit questions around the complex relationship between research and activism by unpacking nuances of working closely and collaboratively with an activist from the pastoral community in the course of doing this research. In unpacking this collaboration, we have also addressed involvement of pastoral women themselves and its effect on the research process as well as on us. This paper tries to open up the question of feminist collaborative methodologies and reflects on one of the ways of practicing it.