Breaking barriers: Indigenous women in leadership

Indigenous women leaders defy narrow definitions, seamlessly weaving tradition, modernity, and justice to reshape their communities. This paper centres Alisha Gautam Oraon (an Indigenous women from Oraon community, Jharkhand, India) - model, entrepreneur, and educator—as a case study in the paradoxical realities of Indigenous women’s leadership. Her story exposes how the “ideal worker” myth of Acker (1990)—predicated on unencumbered, masculine productivity—collides with Indigenous women’s lived experiences of cultural stewardship, caregiving, and systemic marginalization. Through Alisha’s journey, the study analyses - (i) negotiating dual burdens: how she navigates patriarchal cultural expectations and neoliberal workplace demands that render caregiving invisible, (ii) resistance as leadership: her strategies to reclaim authority—from challenging tribal council gender biases to leveraging entrepreneurship as decolonial praxis, (iii) structural ironies: while globalization erodes Indigenous autonomy, Alisha opts its tools (social media, transnational networks) to amplify Adivasi rights, especially for young women in creative field. Acker’s framework reveals how Indigenous women are penalized for deviating from the “disembodied worker” ideal, yet their leadership inherently subverts it—centring community well-being over capitalist productivity. This study urges a redefinition of “effective leadership” through Indigenous feminist lenses, arguing that sustainable development demands policies valuing reproductive labour as much as market labour.