This article explores the multiple processes of maintaining access and asserting user rights to forest space among the Van Gujjar pastoralists in North India. In particular, the Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA) has created an opportunity for forest dwellers across India to seek legal means to forest rights. Conducting ethnographic fieldwork, organising workshops on forest rights, and mapping traditional territories among the Van Gujjars, we observed that complex cultural performances are necessary for the Van Gujjars to claim access to forest areas and resources—legal or otherwise. These performances include, but are not limited to, litigation, supporting emergent leaders, and caring for cattle and kin under constant threats of evictions. Drawing on recent scholarship on the everyday formation of territorial governments, we examine how communities maintain, contest, or reinvent cultural practices and governance in the context of their struggles for access inscribed as forest rights. In contrasting cases among two groups of Van Gujjars seeking rights to forest spaces in the two neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, we shed light on the repercussions that formally or informally engaging the FRA can have for communities of forest dwellers. Based on ethnographic research completed between 2012 and 2019, we find that 1) the Van Gujjar territorial governments carrying on these claims are more diverse than the law recognises, and that 2) not all communities see it worthy to organise a territorial government claiming formal rights under the FRA. Fundamentally, we discern that more immediate threats to Van Gujjar livelihoods result in a greater shift in their cultural practices towards organising a territorial government seeking forest rights through the FRA.

中文翻译：

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日常森林权利：在印度北方邦和北阿坎德邦声称领土和牧民生计

本文探讨了印度北部 Van Gujjar 牧民维护对森林空间的访问和维护用户权利的多个过程。特别是，2006 年的《森林权利法》（FRA）为印度各地的森林居民创造了一个寻求森林权利合法途径的机会。通过进行民族志实地考察、组织森林权利研讨会和绘制 Van Gujjar 人的传统领地地图，我们观察到，Van Gujjar 人需要进行复杂的文化表演，才能获得合法或其他方式的森林地区和资源。这些表现包括但不限于诉讼、支持新兴领导人以及在不断被驱逐的威胁下照顾牛和亲属。借鉴最近关于领土政府日常组建的学术成果，我们研究了社区如何在争取被列为森林权利的获取的背景下维护、竞争或重塑文化实践和治理。通过对比两组 Van Gujjars 在北方邦和北阿坎德邦两个相邻州寻求森林空间权利的案例，我们阐明了正式或非正式参与 FRA 可能对森林居民社区产生的影响。根据 2012 年至 2019 年间完成的民族志研究，我们发现 1) 执行这些主张的 Van Gujjar 地区政府比法律承认的更加多样化，并且 2) 并非所有社区都认为值得组织一个声称正式权利的地区政府根据 FRA。从根本上说，