Human Rights as Practice

Human Rights as Practice is based on ethnographic fieldwork across three villages in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The research examines the processes Dalit women adopt to organise and evolve collective action strategies to claim access to and control over livelihood resources where they face social exclusion. By analysing the power dynamics between these women and non-state and state actors, centred on intersecting caste, class and gender structures, the research exposes the multiple enabling and constraining factors that condition these women's agency.