Contribution long abstract:

In this paper, I study the anthropogenic climate change induced health hazards and its impact on the bodies of the female climate migrants from the minority communities in India’s "Sundarbans".

Sundarbans (world’s largest mangrove forest spanning across the borders of Bangladesh and India) has unique geographical features, and its elevated status on a global level (it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997) brought in state government’s sustained interest in developmental projects and intense tourism in the region. This, in turn, has exacerbated the onset of environmental stressors, in the form of metal pollution of water from the painting of the boats as well as diesel, kerosene and oil spills in the river, contributing to severe health hazards, specifically for the disadvantaged groups. As water regulates everything in Sundarbans, the disruption in its source has necessitated forced migration out of the swamp land, that warrants further elaboration, particularly in tandem with the local women’s battle with chronic skin diseases, irregular menstrual cycle, miscarriages, preeclampsia and cervical cancer.

I will address this long-standing histories of environmental degradation in the minority communities of Sundarbans in relation to the markers of anthropogenic toxins on the female bodies. Additionally, I will discuss how such narratives of displacement is also shaped by an emplacement, in the survival strategies employed by the female climate migrants, through their stories, artwork and community involvement, rooted in the idea of commoning as a healing practice, that eventually produce crucial sites of new forms of knowledge production.