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- Convenors:
-
Vasudha Chhotray
(University of East Anglia)
Patrik Oskarsson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)
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- Format:
- Paper panel
- Stream:
- Energy transitions and environmental justice
Short Abstract:
Phasing out coal mining risks leaving coalfield residents in the Global South dispossessed and jobless neither able to revert to agriculture nor find jobs in the 'modern' economy. This panel explores social relations in coalfields to theorise a liminal transition to uncertain coal-free futures.
Description:
The urgency of phasing out coal mining is unquestionable given the escalating climate crisis. The social realities in key coal geographies in the Global South, however, present complex situations that challenge a neat transition. Dispossessed poor indigenous and low caste groups continue to inhabit heavily mined spaces, with varying degrees of dependence on the coal economy for livelihoods that are overwhelmingly informal and precarious. This panel proposes a critical look at social relations around land and labour in the coalfields to theorise a liminal transition – a transition where coalfield groups can neither revert to earlier agrarian livelihoods, nor find new jobs in the ‘modern’ economy.
Liminality in the context of coal is an uncertain condition of in-betweenness, between an agrarian past, a present dominated by coal, and a future that is potentially coal-free. In coal areas, severe physical and ecological degradation challenge the resumption of land-based livelihoods, and labour is locked into forms of predatory capture by coal companies, both state and private. Plans for green development and just transitions in coal areas risk reproducing these past exclusions and injustices leaving coalfield communities with continued informal coal mining as their only option to get by.
Anchored in an ongoing research project studying the future of coal mining lands in India, this panel invites submissions from coal geographies in India and beyond. Together we will seek to theorise the liminal transition based on coal-land and labour relations and seek answers to big questions in support of a just coal-free future.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This article explores the political economy reasons behind India’s continued fossil energy expansion using the Deucha Pachami coal mine in West Bengal as entry point. Despite coal's high cost and surplus electricity, the state government pursues a questionable fossil project in lack of other income.
Paper long abstract:
Based on the assertion that the world needs to drastically cut its fossil energy use, this article explores the federal political economy reasons behind continued fossil energy expansions in India. It does so by examining state government support for the peculiar Deucha Pachami coal mine in West Bengal state – peculiar not only since coal energy is more expensive than renewable energy, not only due to the history of prominent land struggles against displacement within the state, but also due to the very expensive coal that will be produced from this deep mine in a state which does not need more electricity. To explore what we term fossil developmentalism of last resort, we combine literature on energy geographies and India’s federal political economy to seek explanations for continued federal state government support for coal energy also for seemingly unattractive projects like the Deucha Pachami coal mine. Empirically, we draw on activist reports, political debates within the state and official documents including mine planning documents. Tentative conclusions indicate that state-level coal mining support relates to the lack of alternative income-generating avenues as India’s federal political economy increasingly centralises power and financial resources to the national government. In such a setting state governments may seek to develop also financially (and environmentally) questionable fossil energy projects in order to improve their ability to compensate key electoral groups.
Paper long abstract:
This paper posits the centrality of the dalaal (middleman) to the narratives, discourses, and practices of conjunctural resistance and acquiescence that underpin the landscape of coal. Noting the role of politics and discursive contestations in the creation of coal as a resource, this paper illustrates how dalit and adivasi dalaals mediate the construction of an agentic sociality at the frontiers of extraction, and are thus an immanent character in the repertoire of actionable agency at labour’s disposal to reconstitute the geography of capitalism. Thinking through dealmaking as a window into the dynamics of accumulation, extraction, and the life worlds of rurality allows us to foreground how internally variegated communities and actors dialectically constitute the landscape of coal. Drawing from 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Jharkhand, India, this paper shows how in opposition to readings of dalaali or brokerage as being reactionary and steeped in the logic of personal profit, the dalaals in my field of study who side with "The Company" see its entry into the region as marking a period of “political openness,” whereby class relations and contestations that were hitherto contingent upon the ownership and control over land may be reworked. The dalaal’s actions in the landscape of coal — a landscape that is at once inhabited by the past — are to be located, this paper argues, within a spatially, temporally, and morally negotiated flux: a state of constant in-between-ness in structurally contingent resistance and acquiescence that I call ‘the speculative liminalities of land’.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the historical trajectory of coal-land and labour relations entangled with the changing socio-materiality of coal over different regimes of state and capital, and its contribution to the (re) production of coal geography – which has critical implications for the post-coal future.
Paper long abstract:
India's longstanding presence of coal with its multi-faceted socio-materiality suggests incredible transformative power and complex configurations of capital, state, land and labour relations. This paper examines the historical trajectory of coal-land and labour relations entangled with the changing socio-materiality of coal over different regimes of state and capital, and its contribution to producing space – the (re) production of coal geography – which has critical implications for the post-coal future. Combining historical research and long-term fieldwork in one of the highest coal-producing regions – Talcher in the state of Odisha, the paper argues that coal-land relations are critical in producing the labour regime and coal geography in India. While the coal-land relations produced semi-proletariats and enclaves during the colonial period, a temporary transition to the formalization of coal workers, proletarianization, and the emergence of company towns defined the coal geography during Nehruvian Developmentalism. This paper conceptualizes the contemporary coal geographies as ‘precarious coal geography’ since the liberalization in the 1990s, as it combines the colonial legacy of the enclave, reminiscent of Nehruvian ‘company towns’ and precarity featuring environmental and bio-physical depletion of bodies, escalated socio-economic inequalities, labour hierarchies, and varied forms of exploitation. The paper further argues that uneven labouring bodies are arranged as permanent workers, subcontracted and casual wage workers (besides invisibilized care providers) for the everyday functioning of the precarious coal geography. The paper emphasizes unevenness produced in the precarious coal geography and, poses the risk of reproduction and escalation during coal closures and transitions.
Paper short abstract:
My work focuses on the challenges of just transitions driven by and for those in the global South. Through my work I wish to contribute to more comprehensively mapping the space for purposeful transitions towards sustainable development pathways.
Paper long abstract:
India’s energy system is currently shaped by two contrasting dynamics. On one hand, there is significant momentum towards the growth of a green energy economy, supported by various policies promoting renewable energy, green hydrogen, and energy efficiency technologies. On the other hand, India’s coal economy continues to expand, with new coal power plants and mines being established, and coal-based power generation still contributing over 65% of the country’s electricity—an imbalance that will take decades to address. Beyond the formal employment and energy sector spending commonly discussed in energy policy, coal's deep economic and social entrenchment in certain regions of India is a critical factor. This paper explores the complex role of coal in India’s social, economic, and political fabric, highlighting the emerging developmental opportunities as decarbonization and just transition discussions gain traction in domestic policy. The paper is based on 37 expert interviews with experts across the coal and energy sector in India and complemented with secondary literature review. By engaging with labor issues, financial dependencies, and India’s involvement in global just transition dialogues, this review assesses the current state of coal-related debates in India. It concludes by proposing that a deeper understanding of regional political economies, state interests, and coal dependencies can foster a more constructive and long-term approach to decarbonization.
Paper short abstract:
This study uncovers labour interactions in Eastern India where most work has been related to coal. In the realm of micropolitics surrounding coal extraction, state policies influence employment patterns while the local socio-economic relations remain significant in determining the future of work.
Paper long abstract:
The century-old coal economy of Jharia attracted seasonal migrants from nearby villages to permanent settlers in mining towns, followed by multiple land dispossession in the local villages – ultimately all were pulled or pushed to work in the coal mines. Over the years, unscientific mining led to abandonment of a few old mines. Today, while the state promises to transition away from coal, such mines reopened to counter the infamous coal fires - are rather operated unscientifically as open-cast mines by private companies grabbing land and blasting out coal which spreads fire followed by land subsidence. One such colliery settlement - a community of migrant settlers and indigenous farmers who are notified to be rehabilitated away not only from coal fires (or coal) but from the town of Jharia, are now living in-betweenness of knowing that displacement is on the way but not yet displaced. The author, through an extensive qualitative and quantitative survey in 58 households (including migrants and locals), investigates similarities or disparities across indigeneity, class, caste and gender governing dynamics of land and labour in such colliery spaces. The paper centres around understanding history and social margins of who manages/struggles to move away while who lingers around coal. The differential transition from or continuity of work within and across formal and informal coal sector is captured by the intermix of both social and state institutions. Hence, the study expresses its doubt of a just transition away from coal in regions where livelihoods continuously hang in the middle.
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that any coal closures must be viewed as a part of a larger ‘extractive continuum’, where the larger political narrative on decarbonisation coexists uncomfortably with the continuous range of extractive activities undertaken by the state and its allies.
Paper long abstract:
The end of coal in a major fossil fuel extractor like India is an exciting prospect for global climate enthusiasts. And yet, the country’s stated intent to decarbonise by 2070 does not translate into any specific point in time or space for coal mining to end. This paper argues that any coal closures must be viewed as a part of a larger ‘extractive continuum’, where the larger political narrative on decarbonisation coexists uncomfortably with the continuous range of extractive activities undertaken by the state and its allies, relating to a wide range of subsoil and terrestrial resources. The paper theorises the ‘end of coal’ from the ground up, drawing on intensive research in a strategically important but understudied coalfield within Odisha, a key coal producing state of the country. In-depth research in 3 villages within the Ib Valley Coalfield in north-western Odisha confirms this continuum of coal extraction, with the consequences of land acquisition staggered over decades and tightly bound with the micro level politics of resettlement and compensation. Strategic calculations by coal proponents in agreements reached with dispossessed groups vastly reconfigure the coalfield geography, while limiting the abilities of coalfield communities to disrupt extraction. This extractive continuum of coal, stretched across time and space, constrains local agency and resistance, precluding a grassroots imagination, let alone involvement, in envisioning a coal-free future.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we theorize the liminal space between the end of coal mining in Appalachia and the political economic arrangements that follow as an ‘interregnum,’ drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci. We present research on how power is shifting in an Appalachian valley during the coal transition.
Paper long abstract:
In 2020, after 140 years of coal mining, the last mines shuttered in the Clearfork Valley of Tennessee and Kentucky, part of the Appalachian region of the United States. The decline of coal mining left the community with few sources of employment, small business closed, and high outmigration. The decline of coal also created a power vacuum, ending more than a century of coal industry domination. Presenting research from our forthcoming book, Power and Just Transition: the Struggle for a Post-Coal Future in an Appalachian Valley, we theorize the liminal space between the end of coal mining and the political economic arrangements that replace it as an ‘interregnum,’ what Antonio Gramsci famously described to be when “the old is dying, but the new cannot be born.” Tracing how power relations shift as coal declines, we consider the ways that a new green economy, new economic actors, old political elites, and community-based actors seeking a just transition struggle for control in this one valley. In 2019, as mines closed, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) facilitated the purchase of over 100,000 acres of land once owned by a coal company in the Clearfork Valley. The conservancy generated new rents from conservation, carbon and solar energy, yet remain removed from many aspects of life in the Valley. Simultaneously, an upsurge in support for fossil fuels in regional and national politics puts the future of green political economy in jeopardy. In this uncertain interregnum, we find possibility for community-based efforts to achieve a just transition.
Paper short abstract:
Examining the reliance on informal coal-related activities among marginalized communities in Son-Rihand Basin, this study emphasizes the need for inclusive, sustainable and just pathways that align with community aspirations, address structural barriers and build resilience for a post-coal future.
Paper long abstract:
Based on a survey of 380 households in Son-Rihand Basin (SRB), this study examines the socioeconomic implications of coal mine closures and the respondents’ willingness to adopt alternative livelihoods in light of India’s target of net-zero emissions by 2070. The SRB, located in the coal-rich north-eastern Vindhyan ranges, is a hub of mining and thermal power generation. However, it is marked by complexities and reliance on informal coal-related activities among marginalized communities. Using a mixed-methods approach encompassing remote sensing, GIS, household surveys, interviews and focused group discussions, this study highlights the region’s multifaceted dependence on coal mining and thermal power plants. The analysis suggests that 40% of households rely on coal-related activities, while others are engaged in business, agriculture and public sector undertakings. Notably, 44% of respondents have expressed a preference for entrepreneurship, followed by manufacturing, retail, administration and agriculture. Younger respondents (<30 years of age) have showed an inclination toward public service and administrative jobs.
Skill development is crucial for smooth transitions to alternative livelihoods, but financial constraints and degraded land pose significant challenges. Current government’s green development strategies lack targeted policy interventions and investments in education and skills leading to exclusion of communities from the ‘development’ trajectory. By situating the SRB within global debates on land, labour and coal transitions, this study offers actionable insights for policymakers and researchers. It emphasizes the need for inclusive, ecologically sustainable and socially just pathways that align with community aspirations, address structural barriers and build resilience for a post-coal future.
Paper short abstract:
India's Adivasis, divided along lines of class and tribe, experience coal mining-led dispossessions in staggered ways over many years.This paper draws out the implications of land and labour inequalities on Adivasi emancipatory politics and the imaginations of a just coal-free future.
Paper long abstract:
Privatisation and deregulation of the coal sector, allowing for commercial profits through mining, have generated a rush for land and increased extractivism in the last two decades in mineral belts of India. This paper places Birampalli, a predominantly Adivasi village in coal belts of Central India inhabited by marginalised social groups, within a continuum of displacement and its impacts, contextualised within mining-instigated agrarian changes and rural industrialisation. Birampalli had lost parts of its cultivable land through a state-led acquisition in 2006, and now faces an impending complete displacement due to mine expansion by private capital. This paper will show how mining related dispossession might be experienced in stages, within the life cycle of a single or two generations but their political struggles may vary between these stages of land grabs. Regulatory and business complications also can lead to phases of mining inactivity when legal regulations promising employment to land losers are not implemented as well. The continuing loss of land and forest resources, precarity of jobs generated through rural industrialisation, and loss of employment from mining shut-downs have disproportionately impacted the poorer Adivasis. Both the collective memory of the past dispossession and ongoing precarity of labour work have created a broad based mobilisation against the impending displacement, but it remains rooted in agrarian inequalities that foreground interests of landed capital. The paper draws out the implications of land and labour-based inequalities among Adivasi communities on their emancipatory politics and the imaginations of a just coal-free future.
Paper short abstract:
This theoretical paper offers a socially centred analysis of post-mining landscapes conventionally viewed in depoliticised, environmental science terms. The aim is to make an original contribution to rapidly unfolding discussions on a just energy transition in key fossil extraction geographies.
Paper long abstract:
This theoretical paper offers a socially centred analysis of post-mining landscapes conventionally viewed in depoliticised, environmental science terms with a focus on waste containment and nature restoration. Through an extensive global literature review the paper theorises liminality in the context of mine closure for Global South coalfields through the shaping and reshaping of land, labour and social identities. It unpacks what these revolving lifeworlds indicate for the political subjectivity of coalfield communities (encompassing agency, negotiation and resistance) that are the most impacted by mine closures. This paper aims to make an original and highly timely contribution to rapidly unfolding discussions on how to understand the social questions part of a just energy transition in key fossil extraction geographies.