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Paper short abstract

This paper examines fisherfolks' coexistence with water-plants in North Bihar, India through a reflective political ecology of multispecies that examines practices of environmental care to probe theories of symbiosis and conviviality through concepts of inequality and environmental justice.

Paper long abstract

This paper looks into the praxis of coexistence and care between one of the most disadvantaged community in North Bihar, India, that of riverine fisher-people, and some of the water-plants they live with. The embodied ways in which fisherfolks interact with waterbodies and its leafy inhabitants while fencing off worsening disasters and communal violence cannot simply be understood through praise-worthy symbiosis, mutuality and conviviality, particularly if we juxtapose them to the community’s social-political aspirations and the consequent interpretations of change, social mobility, and future that constantly redefine them.

Those practices, examples of class consciousness against all odds, weapons of the weak, attempts to counter processes of hegemony, are also not the best examples of conservation and sustainability, particularly if we read them along the multispecies stories written in the water—tales of harmful algae blooms and omens of wastelands.

I propose a political ecology of multispecies that considers global ramifications of fisherfolks-waterplants interactions and comprises the observing researcher and scholarly practices of interpretation and judgement to argue that unpacking layers of inequality and related ecological practices requires probing multispecies approaches for how they intersect with environmental justice.