Presentation short abstract

This paper examines visual stories by marginalized children and youth in the Indian Sundarbans, showing how climate threats and human interventions unsettle their hydro-social world and endanger livelihoods, urging a rethink of development through ecological justice.

Presentation long abstract

The Indian Sundarbans, a dynamic landscape where land and sea converge with the sky, is shaped by the intricate interplay between forest and river systems. Since November 2019, 'The Mangrove School Project' has shed light on the interconnected ecological health, tracing the long history of interventions across land, forest, and water, while foregrounding the lived experiences of children and youth (ages 12–21) within the Indian Sundarbans. In this region, livelihoods are inextricably linked to the environment. This research recognizes the often-silenced perspectives of its 7.2 million inhabitants, nearly half of whom belong to marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who daily face the escalating threats of climate change and human-induced disasters. While climate challenges are seen as an unavoidable reality, it is the human-driven interventions that generate the greatest anxiety among local people.

This paper explores the visual narratives of the marginalized children and youth, who reflect on their lived realities and their parents’ ongoing struggle for survival. Through participatory visual methodologies, these young voices reveal how hydro-social spaces in the Sundarbans are being destabilized by technological interventions enacted under the guise of socio-economic development. Their stories warn of an impending erasure—not only of livelihoods but of entire habitats—underscoring an urgent need to rethink dominant developmental paradigms and to reimagine the delta through the lens of ecological justice, while reshaping this fragile deltaic region.