Negotiating Placeness Tribal Communities in Western Ghats

‘Lived place’ refers to the subject perception of place. It is concrete and based on experience. For the tribal communities staying or camping in the forest, it is their ‘lived place’ about which they have living memories, orally transmitted narratives and distinct thought processes. It is populated, embodying several meanings and they have symbolic relationship to it. By contrast, 'conservation space' refers to an objectified perception of space. It is abstract and based on geometry. For the state, forest is a ‘conservation space’ – a space for the management of resources and governance of people therein. It is stratified by the quantity and quality of resources. State preserves the conservation space because of the resources. These two conceptually opposed perceptions of forest are in contact at a locale where the practices of governance of forest take place. In this contact zone, there are moments of commensuration, incommensurability, conflict and transgression. By way of this contact, communities have re-constituted their relation with the forest, their identity and relations with others.