A WOMEN’S AGRICULTURAL ALBOR PROJECT

MAHARASHTRA STATE, INDIA

Saundra Sturdevant has published and exhibited nationally and internationally. She holds a PhD in Modern Chinese History from the University of Chicago; and since the early 1980s, has lived and worked as a documentary photographer in Asia, Central and North America. Please see: www.ssturdevantphotography.com  

After publishing LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL: Prostitution and U.S. Military in Asia [NY: The New Press, 1992], Saundra began work on The Women’s Agricultural Labor Project in Maharashtra State, India, in the mid-1990s. Her primary focus has been defining gender specific work in agriculture. Relationships maintained since graduate student days of the 1960s when we were activists with the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars provided introductions to Indian peasant, women’s and labor organizers living in working in Mahrashatra. Without the kindness and friendship of Dr. Gail Omvedt, scholar and activist living in Kasegaon, and Maiah Wankadae, village head in the Yeotmal area, this work would not have been possible. Maiah was my guide, translator and educator as we traveled together around Maharashtra for six weeks. Her keen eye and sensibilities inform many of the images.

 The three-fold focus of this work encompasses contemporary women’s labor life in an ancient and traditional agricultural area of India. These are:

(1)           Agricultural labor in the fields

(2)           Women's domestic labor

(3)           Labor when field labor is not available

Saundra subsequently moved to Three Rivers, Tulare Country, California, to begin work on the second part of this project, that of California where agribusiness, not agriculture, is the form of land cultivation. Her focus continued to be gender specific work and asked the question of how this is different in petrochemical based agribusiness as opposed to traditional agricultural. In the process of this work, she founded and worked as Executive Director of the Migrant Photography Project, a non-governmental 501© 3. Please see:

www.migrantphotograpraphyproject.org

SAUNDRA STURDEVANT

sandysturdevant@gmail.com