Nomadic Indigenous Peoples and the Law: Self-Determination, Land Rights and Gender Justice in India

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Indrani Sigamany

Nomadic Indigenous Peoples and the Law

Self-Determination, Land Rights and Gender Justice in India

Indrani Sigamany

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English

Routledge
21 July 2025

Series: Indigenous Peoples and the Law

This book investigates the unique challenges faced by nomadic Indigenous peoples in claiming self-determination and rights to their ancestral lands.

Nomadic or mobile Indigenous peoples have been largely ignored in the wider context of Indigenous land rights, but such groups are often even more marginalised than other Indigenous peoples. Focusing on the Indian Forest Rights Act, this book explores how access to justice remains uneven and elusive for mobile Indigenous communities who have been dispossessed of their lands. Exposing the lack of recognition of usufruct rights and of customary land laws, which have caused a more acute displacement from ancestral lands for mobile Indigenous peoples, the book reveals how their nomadic livelihoods have excluded them from government policies and laws. The book further examines the gendered and intersectional aspects of this exclusion. In conclusion, the book maintains that legislation such as the progressive Forest Rights Act is necessary, but not enough, to protect the rights of mobile Indigenous peoples. In such cases, the book argues, legislation has to be supported by nuanced governance, which is sensitive to the particular challenges presented by Indigenous peoples who are further marginalised through nomadic lifestyles.

This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers working in the areas of Indigenous studies, socio-legal studies, human and minority rights, and gender and international development.

By: Indrani Sigamany
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032964454
ISBN 10: 1032964456
Series: Indigenous Peoples and the Law
Pages: 162
Publication Date: 21 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Introduction. ‘When the Camel Grows Horns’ 1. Legal Mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples and the Forest Rights Act of India 2. A Critical Examination of Forest Rights Legislation, Indigenous Access to Justice, and Land Expropriation 3. Gender Resilience and Deconstructing Inequality 4. Livelihoods and Forest Rights: The Struggle for Self-Determination. Conclusion. The Unevenness of Access to Justice

Indrani Sigamany is a researcher and a senior international development consultant, working in the fields of social justice, gender justice, and Indigenous land rights.