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The effects of environmental degradation on livelihoods are significant in many parts of the developing world. This article attempts to quantify the impact of deforestation on women's work burden in the eastern Himalayas through a primary survey in three villages of Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India. Our findings suggest that although deforestation increases women's work in forest-related collection and gathering activities, the net impacts are also mediated through processes of commercialization of the subsistence economy. While women share a disproportionately higher work burden in terms of the time spent in collection and processing of forest products, commercialization of some products has also resulted in higher participation of men in collection, marketing, and transport activities. It was found that the quality of Gender, Technology and Development 16(3) 299-328 village forest is a strong factor in reducing women's total work burden. Forest degradation increases the work burden of women, as does the distance of agricultural land from house, and dependence on shifting cultivation.

This article examines the context and implications of increasing participation of women in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in Arunachal Pradesh. The key question that is addressed is whether inclusion of women in grassroots-level governance expands the scope for a more inclusive governance. The findings of the study suggest that the mere representation of women in decentralised governance is not enough to bring any qualitative change in local politics so far as inclusiveness is concerned. In the presence of multiple marginalities and multiple forms of exclusion, positive discrimination in one domain has not been able to create a ripple effect in addressing other forms of exclusion. With all its potential as an agent of change, women’s reservation in PRIs remains firmly anchored in the patriarchal politics of identity. The study finds that reservation for women in PRIs, although an important step towards gender equality, has failed to create the ground for a more inclusive form of grassroots governance.

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