Contribution short abstract:

Mega energy projects are reshaping and reconstructing human–animal relationships and mobilities. The initiation of extractions, solar energy projects, and infrastructure-related projects, the region has experienced the reshaping and tranforming of desert ecologies from camels to solar energy.

Contribution long abstract:

Mega energy projects in the Thar Desert of Pakistan are reshaping and reconstructing human–animal relationships and mobilities. Desert is known to be a habitat for indigenous pastoralist groups. Since the initiation of extraction, solar energy projects, and infrastructure-related projects, the region has experienced the reshaping, relocation, and dispossession of animal and human commons and their existence. The region's identity, sense of belonging, and subsistence livelihood have been shaped by rain, drought, and human-animal common, particularly during the monsoon season or in drought years. Recent energy and development projects have affected, transformed, dispossessed, and disrupted their local relationships with animals, their historical migration routes, and common lands, and reshaped their animal rearing activities and mobilities along with changing water bodies and solar energy water projects. The shrinking of common lands and urbanization have reshaped new mobilities with the possibility of solar water pumps, not only altering the pattern of seasonal mobility but also changing human-animal relationships and practices in the desert. Furthermore, this paper will highlight how camels, historically known as desert ships, are becoming a burden in energy regime infrastructure, while donkeys, once domesticated, are now reverting to a wild state. This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and embedded knowledge as a native of the region belonging to a pastoralist family. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted for a doctoral project between 2022 and 2023 in the southeastern district of Pakistan bordering India.