Scaling the Divide: Women’s Embodied Agency and Spatial Resistance in Kashmir’s Trekking Culture
Shahnawaz Ahmad Khanday
Ph.D Research Scholar, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Integral University Lucknow, India.
Vandana Mishra
Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Integral University Lucknow, India.
Adventure tourism in Kashmir, particularly trekking, is emerging as a terrain of gender renegotiation. This study examines women’s participation in trekking in the districts of Srinagar, Baramulla, and Anantnag, investigating how female trekkers contest entrenched socio-cultural norms and access traditionally male-dominated outdoor spaces. Drawing on a mixed-methods design, the research includes face-to-face interviews with 200 trekkers which were selected by using snowball sampling technique. Statistical analysis used ANOVA and t-tests. Findings reveal significant demographic differences in women’s motivations and challenges, with urban, unmarried, and younger women reporting greater participation and more positive experiences. Anchored in feminist geographic frameworks, specifically Massey’s spatiality and Butler’s performativity, the paper foregrounds how women’s corporeal movement through mountainous terrains constitutes acts of spatial resistance. Participation in trekking offers both a reclaiming of public space and a reconfiguration of femininity in a geopolitically charged region. The study further discusses how leisure practices contribute to gendered subjectivities and socio-spatial transformation. By centring women’s narratives of embodiment, constraint, and resilience, this research highlights the potential of adventure tourism not merely as leisure, but as a politically and culturally situated practice that reshapes gendered geographies in Kashmir.
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