Presentation long abstract

As per the Global Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas), indigenous people have mobilized more than half of the environmental justice movements in India (57%). Adivasis are also the most affected (over 40%) by the ecological conflicts in India. Communities that are at the forefront of social, environmental, and cultural injustices in many regions, including India, protest the continuous colonial-era environmental extraction. The motivations for resistance are rooted in opposition to ongoing dominance of modern, colonial, capitalist, and extractive tendencies that are a result of social difference, including gender, race, caste, & class.  To study the motivations of the indigenous people, particularly indigenous youth who are at the core of many environmental movements in India, it is important to understand the unequal power dynamics and structural & systematic injustices that exist as a result of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. In this paper, I propose the theory of intersectionality to examine the motivations of indigenous youth activists. I particularly propose Patricia Hill Collins ‘matrix of domination’ that comes from intersectionality research to examine the systematic and structural power injustices. The ‘Matrix of domination’. This will help understand the role of systemic and structural domination The goal is to move beyond examining the vulnerabilities of the youth to how the unequal power dynamics impact their lives and shape their activism. An intersectional lens in understanding the motivations for mobilizing for environmental change will contribute to decolonial environmental justice and bring forth the voices from the Global south.