Understanding multiple meanings of hunting in the Idu-Mishmi landscape of Northeast India

The Idu Mishmi tribe who lives in the India-China border in the Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh, India, is among the communities where people used to be dependent upon the ‘hunting economy’. Hunting used to be the mainstay of the food basket of the people. In due course of time as various changes set in the Dibang valley, nuances of hunting had influences on it too. Thus, it began to account for being supplementary to the food requirement of society. Animals and other non-humans occupy a prominent position and there is a sense of relatedness to animals, whereas, the perspectives of the State on hunting, preservation of wildlife, and overall change in the valley have thrown a newer dimension in the debate on the conservation of the wildlife in the area. Drawing upon Participatory Rural Appraisal as a broad method for conducting fieldwork in Dibang Valley, this paper tries to conceptualize hunting and its role in the Idu Mishmi landscape and how the state and scientific ways of imagining hunting and conservation bring newer dimensions to the landscape. The spaces lived by the human and non-human have become hybrid with the onset of newer actors. Therefore, an attempt to overview the multiple meanings of hunting will help in understanding what lies on the other side of the idea of wildlife conservation.