Forest Governance in North-East India: Resilience, Reworking and Refusal

The interview transcripts presented here were gathered during ethnographic work in 2020-21 conducted in the Baghmara Reserved Forest of Meghalaya, India as a part of a PhD. It is located on the India-Bangladesh border. Baghmara Reserved Forest is placed at an intersection of colonial forest-making and post-colonial conservation projects, making the forest dwellers forest labourers. The objective of the ethnographic work was to immerse oneself in forest dwellers' responses to forest laws, conservation, and the people's everyday livelihoods. As such, the datasets tell us about people's lived realities and how they indulge in small acts to change the oppressive conditions.