In her rich ethnographic account of tribal women's struggle to claim their rightful share of landholdings in India, Nitya Rao delves into the lives of twenty-four Santal women over a period of eighteen months, from June 1999 to December 2000. As the title of this book implies, it is difficult for a Santal woman to cultivate land that is rightfully hers and at the same time retain her identity as a “good woman.” Maintaining one's identity is one of the key factors that Rao examines, as she sees land not merely as a material asset but also as a “key element in the identities of indigenous people” (p. 6). While the possession and cultivation of land works to fulfill a positive social identity for men, “women are unable to act as autonomous individuals in relation to land,” thus compromising their ability to fulfill a positive social identity through owning and...

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