Other Forms of Dwelling: A Dalit – Feminist Perspective

Lakshmi frames Dalit feminist values alongside Indigenous frameworks to show alternative forms of dwelling, relation, and resistance beyond colonial modernity.

Shrutika Lakshmi
JCRT https://outcome.doctrineofdiscovery.org/jcrt/issue1/lakshmi/

Canonical: https://jcrt.org/archives/24.2/lakshmi/

Abstract

Lakshmi frames Dalit feminist values alongside Indigenous frameworks to show alternative forms of dwelling, relation, and resistance beyond colonial modernity.

This paper is an attempt to bring together different values from different socio-cultural contexts together with an intention to weave a meaningful narrative. For this reason, this paper will focus on the ‘Indigenous Values’ as explained by Philip Arnold in his book The Urgency of Indigenous Values as a basic structural framework to think about the Dalit women of the Indian subcontinent in consonance with these values and urgency. Similar to the indigenous values are the values lived and experienced by these Dalit women who help us to explore the different frameworks of existing in this shared world. To be precise, this paper is an earnest attempt to talk about the other ways of being in the world through the urgency of Dalit values. It is in this sense that this paper attempts to bring forth a shared framework to work with. This is a secondary scholarship based on the ethnography of other renowned scholars like Philip P. Arnold and Lucinda Ramberg.