In the sal forests and high meadows of Uttarakhand, the Van Gujjar community has practised transhumance for generations, walking buffalo herds between summer…
Articles
Quiet Authority: How Van Gujjar Women Shape Household Decisions
The Van Gujjar Calendar of Feasts: Seasonal Rituals and Offerings
The Van Gujjar community moves with the Himalayan seasons, their year shaped by buffalo herds, forest rhythms, and highland meadows. For centuries, their…
Organising a Community Health Camp for Buffalo Herders
The Van Gujjar and Himalayan pastoral communities who migrate with their buffalo herds face persistent barriers to veterinary and primary healthcare. Many…
How mobile phone networks shape communication during seasonal migration
Across the foothills of the Himalayas, Van Gujjar families still move with their buffalo herds between summer highlands and winter lowlands, following…
Van Gujjar men reshape household and herding traditions
For generations, the rhythm of a Van Gujjar family followed a clear rhythm: women tended the household, children, and the small dairy needs inside the forest…
SOPHIA's university collaborations advancing pastoral economics research
Deep in the lower Himalayas, the Van Gujjar and other pastoral communities of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have practised seasonal migration…
Traditional Van Gujjar Methods for Treating Common Buffalo Ailments
Deep in the lower Himalayas, the Van Gujjar community has tended water buffalo for generations, carrying an oral pharmacopoeia refined by constant observation.…
Buffaloes as Silent Engineers of Soil and Forest Renewal
Across the Himalayan foothills, large ruminants shape forests in ways satellite imagery rarely captures. Their droppings and grazing patterns rewrite the…
Building Trust With Indigenous Communities As An NGO Worker
When I first travelled to a Van Gujjar settlement in Uttarakhand, I expected my research notebook and a polite introduction to open doors. They did not. What…
Three Generations Walking the Himalayas: A Van Gujjar Migration Story
For more than a century, the Van Gujjar community has followed its buffalo between the alpine meadows of the Himalayas and the lower forests of the Shivalik…