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- Convenors:
-
Philipp Zehmisch
(South Asia Institute, Heidelberg)
Éva Rozália Hölzle (Bielefeld University)
Markus Schleiter (University of Tübingen)
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- Format:
- Workshop
- Regional groups:
- South Asia
- Transfers:
- Closed for transfers
Short Abstract:
Indigenous politics play a significant and affirmative role in support of marginalized communities from colonial times until today. In this panel, we ask how the poly-crises of the 2020s shape South Asian indigenous politics and processes of un/commoning while reflecting on their directional future.
Long Abstract:
Various shifts and disruptions of global and transnational economic flows, new multimodal media environments and the accelerating effects of the Anthropocene have reshaped contemporary political negotiations related to indigeneity in South Asia and beyond. Significant for present-day indigenous politics is the rise of populisms, but also the more exclusive outlook of left-liberal movements and adjacent “culture wars”. Parallel to these wider developments, current academic engagements with South Asian indigenous politics appear to be less intense as compared to two decades ago. Such reshufflings raise several questions regarding the directional future of indigenous politics and related processes of un/commoning as well as the modalities of academic engagement with them.
In this panel, we intend to take stock of the past, assess the present, and explore the future of South Asian indigenous politics. We are especially interested in how particular practices of articulating claims of indigeneity in the various national and subnational contexts in South Asia contest wider socio-political developments and multiple crises unfolding in the present. Does the rise and adjacent fear of populisms correlate with the “cooling down” of academic discourse related to indigeneity? Do new forms of identity politics, and the discourse of decoloniality lead to a strengthening of indigenous voices or rather to a disruption of the engagement by social scientists with such movements? We invite academics, activists and artists to discuss the above issues based on ethnographic case studies, theoretical positionings, historically informed reflections and/or further interventions.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1Contribution short abstract:
Analysing the regional dynamics of the indigeneity concept within and across Adivasi community organising, this paper un-commons and disaggregates the Adivasi identity category, focussing on communication, representation, and practices of recognition in Central and South-East India.
Contribution long abstract:
This paper examines the multiple uses of the term indigeneity mobilized in cultural productions and representations in the South and Central Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, based on extended participatory fieldwork, online research, and ongoing social media connectivity. By investigating lines of communication and political organization between Adivasi groups, I offer an analysis of the multi-dimensional uses to which the indigeneity concept is put. Within a context of rapid and uneven economic transitions and sharp contrasts in the developmental histories of respective regions of the Central-Eastern ‘tribal belt’ of India, scholars observe continuity in the frameworks of oppositional politics that emerge. Unifying themes include land alienation, cultural marginalisation, detribalisation and assimilation. These connect to global discourses of indigeneity, yet the indigeneity concept is selectively and unevenly mobilised in Adivasi communication and self-representation. Through this paper I investigate what is at stake in local understandings of indigeneity; in articulating demands for justice, and representing themselves as distinct communities, how is indigeneity differentially translated and applied across Adivasi settings? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and contemporary media publications from Adivasi cultural producers, the paper registers fine-grained diversity in how the terms of discourse are applied, and analyses this within the context of class, linguistic and regional distinctions. Amidst co-opted visions of decoloniality and indigeneity, I bring together literature on recognition, caste, and Adivasi studies to argue for a regionally disaggregated materialist understanding of how the indigeneity concept is used.
Contribution short abstract:
This research explores how the Gojri buffalo informs the identity and land rights claims of the Van Gujjars. By examining their multispecies relationship, the study analyzes how they navigate right-wing ecological discourses that label them outsiders.
Contribution long abstract:
The presentation explores the Van Gujjar community’s efforts to claim land rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006 rights in Uttarakhand, India. A pastoralist group primarily tending to Gojri water buffalo have historically faced marginalisation and displacement due to forest enclosures and conservation policies from colonial times, which have continued into the post-colonial era. The research focuses on how the community's relationship with their buffalo shapes their identity, resistance, and claims to land rights and citizenship. Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 and the ongoing challenges of claiming land rights under the Forest Rights Act 2006 have heightened the community's anxieties regarding citizenship. With the recognition of the Gojri buffalo as a separate breed in 2023, the community laid a claim to a form of specific traditional knowledge essential to formulating Indigenity under the Schedule Tribes Act.
The study aims to understand how Van Gujjar's relationship with the Gojri buffalo and forest influences their claims to indigeneity and citizenship, particularly as they navigate a political climate increasingly influenced by right-wing ecological discourses as ecologically impure and socio-political outsiders as Muslim pastoralists in Uttrakhand. By examining the multifaceted ways in which the Van Gujjars' multispecies relationships shape their lived experiences, this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness between human and non-human lives, the politics of belonging, and the ongoing debates in the forms of indigeneity in India, where the role of indic and non-indic faith assumes significant.
Contribution short abstract:
Indigeneity in the context of Adivasis in India contributes to a shift from the universalising settler-colonial discourses on Indigeneity. The paper discusses how asymmetric federal structures and constitutional safeguards does very little without sanctions of rights over land and resources.
Contribution long abstract:
Indigeneity in global parlance have been hijacked by settler colonial experiences thereby excluding certain communities from their claims to Indigeneity. Reassessment in the Anthropocene sees a shift for an expansive definition allowing for claims to Indigeneity. The experience of the Adivasis/tribes of India is one that can be highlighted here. The Constitution of India acknowledges the unique cultural and social identity of tribes creating affirmative policies for their integration and development yet refusing to accept the category of Indigenous. Xaxa (1998) argued for recognizing tribes of India as Indigenous highlighting that the aspect of rights and self-determination given by the UN and its agencies acts as a major deterrent for the Indian state to deny the claims, rather the State claiming everyone in India as Indigenous.The recognition of Scheduled Tribes in the Indian Constitution is based on characteristics such as ‘backwardness’, ‘isolation’, ‘closeness to nature’ among others. These concepts inform the policies rolled out in the post-colonial national building processes. The Indian State continues to perpetuate the colonial model of governance and the ensuing policies resulted in the extraction, exploitation and appropriation of their life and lifeworld.
This paper attempts to understand State policies as a means to assimilate Tribes into the mainstream at the cost of erasing their identities and lifeworld. It questions the paradoxical positioning of the State claiming to safeguard and protect the tribes yet failing to recognize their rights over land and resources resulting in tribes as the most exploited and displaced communities in India.