Words from Jawadhu Hills is the fourth publication of the HAB Wordbook Series project, intended as a window into the world of subsistence millet cultivators of the Jawadhu Hills of South India. 

Conducted in collaboration with the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP) in Pondicherry, India as the fifth entry of their Science & Society series, this wordbook is a collaborative exercise in storytelling with words, and an exploration in dialogic interaction in a specific place, one word at a time. Paying attention to words pertaining to the landscape, objects, tools, techniques, rituals, etc., offers a generative space of narration, somewhere between macrosociological analyses and thick descriptions in humanities research.

Each word that makes up this wordbook alludes to a larger web of contingent realities and serves as a placeholder for further inquiry. The words are neither a random selection nor a comprehensive one. Instead, they document situated conversations and present a vocabulary of specific moments and contexts of linguistic interactions between HAB & IFP researchers and millet farmers over a period of a year and a half. 

Each word is written in Tamil script and accompanied by its English transliteration. We have included word meanings in both French and English to broaden its readership scope to include Francophone scholars and communities worldwide. The images serve a similar purpose of expanding the potential for connections and comparisons in subsistence agriculture, beyond the context of Jawadhu Hills.

To download a digital copy of this wordbook, please click here.