Presentation short abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research and building on scholarship in Dalit and Black ecologies, this paper shows how attention to materiality might offer novel modes of theorizing and enacting anti-caste political ecologies.

Presentation long abstract

 This paper explores the materiality of water through the lens of caste. It focuses on the imaginaries and practices of agriculturalists in rural central India as they navigate the complex materiality of subsurface aquifers. For cultivators in semi-arid regions, irrigation is a matter of grave concern, opening up novel agricultural possibilities - new crops, multiple crop cycles, and higher profits. Yet, access to groundwater is elusive, leading farmers to call on spirits, gods, astrologers, and hydrogeologists in their quest. For Dalit (oppressed caste) cultivators, however, the unknowability of the subsurface and the uncertainty around locating groundwater offers an avenue for the critical reimagination and contestation of caste hierarchies. While surface access to land reflects and reproduces structural inequalities of class and caste, the unpredictability of the subsurface can potentially unsettle these hierarchies. I suggest that the matter and meaning of water acquires new significance through the experiences of Dalit smallholder farmers. Drawing on ethnographic research and building on scholarship in Dalit and Black ecologies, this paper shows how attention to materiality might offer novel modes of theorizing and enacting anti-caste political ecologies.