Dr Madhulika Sahoo is an anthropologist by training, currently working as an Assistant Professor (OPSC) in the Department of Anthropology. She is also the Director, Student Welfare and Placement, and a Syndicate Member of Kalahandi University, Government of Odisha. She is also the Editing Manager for Avoidable Death Network, in the United Kingdom. Dr. Sahoo has more than eight years of experience working in the development sector on forced migration, gender and health, and tribal development in India and the United Kingdom. To name a few she has worked in the Independent Asylum Commission UK, Refugee council, UNICEF, UNDP, and the Anthropological Survey of India. She holds an MA in Refugee Studies from the University of East London, M.A in Anthropology from the Sabitribaiphule Pune University, and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology-Rourkela, India. She has many publications in peer-reviewed journals to her credit. Recently she edited a volume titled Ethnographic Research in the Social Sciences, Routledge Publisher. Her research interest includes forced migration, displacement and disaster, gender and tribal health, and digital anthropology.
The tribal population in India constitutes 8.6% of the total population (as per the 2011 census) and tribal women, comprised 47% of India’s tribal population. They are deeply connected to their communities and possess a profound understanding of their ecosystem. However, the intrusion of caste groups in the tribal-dominated areas is bringing changes in the tribal culture and tradition whilst a surge of the transition from tribe to caste is one such example of change is being observed. This process was not just uniform and linear, in the sense of gradual and constant cultural growth and modification. It was a kind of accretion or layers of socio-historical changes interacting and superimposing themselves on each other. Indian tribes have often been characterized as societies that in many respects follow aboriginal lifestyles. Arguments are forwarded that the tribal people do not practice any religious ideology. However, they are in the process of being Hinduized. This way they are supposedly moving towards the other pole of the continuum, the diametrically opposite category known as ‘the Caste.’ The tribal pole represents equality whereas, in the caste group, inequality is observed. The present paper is the observation of the changing distinctiveness of the Khond tribal women in the Kalahandi district of Odisha, India. The paper argued the changes in cultural practices and lifestyle of the Khond tribal women living with the mixed communities.
