The cultural and historical dimensions of rural lives matter. However, development practitioners and writings tend to play down these aspects. This article demonstrates the significance of oral history in revealing the meanings of women smallholders’ millet-based foodways in southern India. It argues that women farmers’ cultural practices around food constitute fundamental ‘capabilities’ nurtured over a long historical duration, and are essential to any meaningful articulation of ‘development’. Drawing on age-old spiritual beliefs and practices involving non-human entities, the women demonstrate fine-tuned skills in nurturing seeds and growing crops, in preparing and cooking food, and in discerning food tastes, particularly in relation to the local staple ragi, or finger millet. They also express their creativity in the joys of performing songs and farming rituals linked to the agricultural cycle. In this way, cultural capabilities express significant dimensions of women's agency exercised in the intimately related spheres of food and farming. Oral history thus emerges as a research method capable of generating insights into concrete manifestations of culture over a significant historical duration, one that is particularly conducive to reclaiming the voices and life experiences of subaltern groups such as women smallholders who are either not heard or are marginalized in written contemporary and historical documentary records.

中文翻译：

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“我们的祖母在除草时唱歌”：卡纳塔克邦拉马纳加拉地区女性小农的口述历史、小米饮食文化和耕作仪式

农村生活的文化和历史层面很重要。然而，发展实践者和著作倾向于淡化这些方面。本文展示了口述历史在揭示印度南部女性小农以小米为基础的饮食方式的意义方面的重要性。它认为，女性农民围绕食物的文化实践构成了长期培养的基本“能力”，对于任何有意义的“发展”表述都是必不可少的。借助涉及非人类实体的古老精神信仰和实践，这些女性展示了在培育种子和种植农作物、准备和烹饪食物以及辨别食物口味方面的精细技能，特别是与当地主食有关拉吉，或手指小米。他们还通过表演与农业周期相关的歌曲和农业仪式来表达他们的创造力。通过这种方式，文化能力体现了妇女在密切相关的食品和农业领域中发挥的重要作用。因此，口述历史作为一种研究方法出现，能够在重要的历史时期内对文化的具体表现产生见解，这种方法特别有利于恢复下层群体的声音和生活经历，例如没有听到或被边缘化的女性小农在书面的当代和历史文献记录中。