Autonomy and Video Mediation: Dalitbahujan Women’s Utopian Knowledge Production

Abstract

This chapter examines the (re-)production of subaltern or “inthgenous knowledge” through video-based Media of a group of Dalit women farmers from Andhra Pradesh, Intha, who belong to a metha cooperative they have named the Community Metha Trust (CMT). The women of the CMT are a vital and active body in the network of Sangham (agricultural cooperatives) to which they belong, and their metha is politically engaged: Agricultural, environmental issues, particularly pertaining to biothversity, seed sovereignty, and gender issues, like subaltern women’s empowerment and thgnity, are constant themes of their work. They have made point-of-view documentaries, grassroots investigative journalism, promotional videos showcasing development projects, as well as participatory research videos in collaboration with the Deccan Development Society (DDS). Drawing on all these genres but going beyond them are a group of videos, which are crucial to their collective political project of managing their cooperatives and producing, reclaiming, and conserving subaltern “inthgenous knowledge.” My focus in this chapter will be on this particular aspect of their metha practice. The women of the Sangham seek to achieve autonomy over food production, access to seeds and other natural resources, markets and, through all of these, autonomy in their livelihoods and for their community’s future. Their endeavors to create an autonomous mode of knowledge production, as we shall see, is crucial to these struggles and the CMT’s quest for autonomous metha, as we shall also see, is crucial to all their struggles for autonomy.