Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 4.02 Stereotypes
Presentation #1 Title
‘Hillbillies’ in the Himalayas? Exploring the ‘Pahari’ Stereotype.
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
This paper examines the relationship between stereotyping and marginalization through a focus on the ways in which the words ‘Pahari’ (Hindi word broadly meaning mountain people) and ‘Hillbilly’ are used for the people of two different mountain regions. It is rooted in everyday examples gathered from autobiographical snippets living in India and preliminary participant observation in Kentucky, USA. I trace my ancestry to the Garhwal region of the Himalayas in India. Situated in a bio-diverse ecosystem, it struggles with livelihood scarcity and poverty while simultaneously serving as a resource extraction zone benefiting areas away from the local region. In the US as a Fulbright visiting student researcher, I find similar realities unfolding in Appalachia. In India my ethnographic research explores notions of belonging linked to place among people who have been ousted due to a dam project in the Garhwal region. I am interested in comparisons of the meanings of belonging and place between them and people in Appalachia displaced by mountain top removal. Drawing from parallels with mountain identity in Garhwal Himalaya and Appalachia through the use of ‘Pahari’ and ‘Hillbilly’, this text sees how stereotyping and marginalization facilitate each other, how they alter the experience of the ones involved and how identity terms are used to contest those processes.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Saakshi Joshi is a doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of Delhi, India. Her research focuses on notions of belonging, memory and ecological nationalism among people affected by the Tehri dam in Uttarakhand, India. A Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Researcher for 2014-15 at the Appalachian Center, University of Kentucky, U.S.A., she is exploring similar themes in the Appalachian region in relation to mountaintop removal for coal mining.
‘Hillbillies’ in the Himalayas? Exploring the ‘Pahari’ Stereotype.
This paper examines the relationship between stereotyping and marginalization through a focus on the ways in which the words ‘Pahari’ (Hindi word broadly meaning mountain people) and ‘Hillbilly’ are used for the people of two different mountain regions. It is rooted in everyday examples gathered from autobiographical snippets living in India and preliminary participant observation in Kentucky, USA. I trace my ancestry to the Garhwal region of the Himalayas in India. Situated in a bio-diverse ecosystem, it struggles with livelihood scarcity and poverty while simultaneously serving as a resource extraction zone benefiting areas away from the local region. In the US as a Fulbright visiting student researcher, I find similar realities unfolding in Appalachia. In India my ethnographic research explores notions of belonging linked to place among people who have been ousted due to a dam project in the Garhwal region. I am interested in comparisons of the meanings of belonging and place between them and people in Appalachia displaced by mountain top removal. Drawing from parallels with mountain identity in Garhwal Himalaya and Appalachia through the use of ‘Pahari’ and ‘Hillbilly’, this text sees how stereotyping and marginalization facilitate each other, how they alter the experience of the ones involved and how identity terms are used to contest those processes.
