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@article{183704,
        author = {Binoy Dangar},
        title = {Sacred Geographies and Hybrid Beings: Indigenous Environmental Wisdom in Easterine Kire's The Rain-Maiden and the Bear-Man},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {3},
        pages = {2815-2819},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=183704},
        abstract = {This paper explores Easterine Kire's short story The Rain-Maiden and the Bear-Man by looking at it through an environmental lens, borrowing ideas from Arne Naess's deep ecology theory and feminist environmental thinking. Kire's story reads like a contemporary fairy tale that brings together human and natural worlds, creating a forest space where different forms of life can truly coexist. This analysis looks at how relationships between men and women unfold through the influence of natural forces, and how the fairy tale form allows for new ways of imagining our connection to nature. This paper explores how the two main characters live as beings who are part animal, part human, showing us that people and nature can sometimes work together beautifully—but they also bump up against each other in ways that feel unavoidable. The story unfolds in a forest that touches human communities, mirroring how the people of Nagaland have always lived closely with their environment, with hunting representing one of the most significant ways they connect to the natural world. Through this environmental way of reading, the study shows how Kire's story argues against putting humans first in everything, instead celebrating that nature is important in its own right and that all living things—people included—should get to coexist on the same level.},
        keywords = {Fairy tale, identity, nature, forest, ecocriticism, animal-human hybridity, deep ecology, ecofeminism},
        month = {August},
        }