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- Convenors:
-
Lili Di Puppo
(University of Helsinki)
Anna Varfolomeeva (University of Oulu)
Iwona Kaliszewska (University of Warsaw)
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- Chair:
-
Iwona Kaliszewska
(University of Warsaw)
- Discussants:
-
Francisco Martínez
(Tampere University)
Maurizio Totaro (University of Ghent)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Environment
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel addresses the way breakthroughs in the form of rapid economic and social developments reshape human bonds to landscapes. Rather than considering interventions such as mining through the prism of their destructive potential, we are interested in the way they also generate new imaginaries.
Long Abstract:
This panel invites papers addressing the way breakthroughs in the form of rapid economic and societal developments reshape human bonds to natural landscapes. Profound social, economic, and ideological changes such as a globalising economy and rapid development of resource extraction impact the ways in which local communities experience and reimagine their attachment to landscape. Rather than considering human interventions such as a newly built infrastructure and resource exploitation through the prism of their destructive potential, we are interested in the way these interventions also generate new imaginaries. Mining developments can lead to new ways of interacting with a more-than-human landscape. Similarly, a particular landscape can be revived and redefined through the presence of a new infrastructure that gives a different status to a particular locality, making it more visible. On the contrary, a rejection of mining exploitation can trigger the rediscovery of ancient bonds with a landscape, generating a new sense of belonging and a reawakening of ethnic and religious identification.
Possible questions to engage with include: how do newly built infrastructures or industrial sites become embedded into landscape imaginaries? Can we talk about the liberating potential of breakthroughs in human - landscape relations? How does the threat of intervention such as mining exploitation trigger a renewed attachment to landscape but also the search for environmental-friendly innovation? Can the natural landscape inspire new modes of living and, potentially, new ethical codes to navigate times of crisis?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This ethnographic study compares two indigenous anti-mining movements in India by analysing their cosmologies, discourses, movement outcomes and explains the various degrees of successes that they achieved through the lens of New Social Movement theory and Political Process theory.
Paper long abstract:
The Indian postcolonial state’s developmentalist and modernizing political economy aims to forge internal colonial and extractive relations with indigenous communities and realms, dispossess them of their natural resources and destroy their rights.
These communities have organised themselves to fight the state-facilitated threat of extractive capital forming social movements to resist and challenge social institutions, governments, and mining companies.
In the provincial state of Odisha lies the Niyamgiri hill range, home to the adivasi (indigenous) Dongria Kondh tribe. In 2004, Vedanta Resources, a London-based Indian mining corporation, planned a project in Niyamgiri to mine for bauxite. The Dongria Kondh resisted the project, and the Supreme Court of India scrapped it in 2013. In 2015, Vedanta Resources planned a gold mining project in Sonakhan, in the provincial state of Chhattisgarh. The adivasi Binjhal tribe resisted the project, and the provincial chief minister promised to stop it.
This ethnographic study compares these two indigenous movements against projects commissioned by Vedanta. We analyze how the movements deployed indigenous cosmologies and discourses, ideas of sacred geography and religiosity, and heterodox cultural idioms in mobilizing history, memory, and folk imaginaries, for staging an organised resilience.
We analyse the similarities and differences to understand the varying degrees of success. We argue that while factors related to the movements shaped the nature of the success, the successful outcome itself was related to the structures of “political opportunities” available at the provincial and national levels; it depended on electoral competition and party politics between the ruling and opposition parties.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the role of mining in shaping and re-configuring human - landscape relations in multispecies households. It analyzes how resource extraction modifies the ties formed between humans, animals, and spirits, or leads to the creation of new human - resource entanglements.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on the role of extractive industries in shaping and re-configuring human - landscape relations in multispecies households. It centers on the case study of Veps in the Republic of Karelia (Northwestern Russia). Veps indigenous identity, connections to landscape, and relations with the state have been influenced by their historical and present engagement in the extraction of rare decorative stones: diabase and quartzite. The paper analyzes how multiple state interventions, economic and ideological changes, as well as close encounters with mining materials impacted Veps' perceptions of the landscape. It argues that mining development could be viewed beyond its disruptive influence on indigenous and local households. In Veps community, the development of resource extraction modified the ties formed between humans, animals, or spirits, or led to the creation of new entanglements between humans and subsurface resources. Therefore, the boost of extractive industries became embedded in the complex local perceptions of the multispecies landscape. The paper is based on participant observation and interviewing conducted in Karelia in 2015 - 2018, as well as newspaper and social media analysis.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines how the threat of exploitation at the sites of two sacred hills in Bashkortostan has provoked a renewed attachment to the landscape among Bashkir Muslims. While attempts to protect the hills correspond to a rediscovery of traditions, they also generate more modern imaginaries.
Paper long abstract:
Situated not far from the city of Sterlitamak in Bashkortostan, the four Shikhan hills - Toratau, Shakhtau, Yuraktau and Kushtau - are considered sacred by many Bashkir Muslims. Over the last years, conflicts have erupted around two of these sacred hills, Toratau and Kushtau, over limestone exploitation by the Bashkir Soda Company. An earlier victim of these extraction practices, Shakhtau has mostly disappeared. In the last years and particularly during the summer of 2020, local Bashkir activists have organised protest actions to protect the hills, enjoying a broad support in Bashkortostan. In this paper, I examine how the threat of exploitation and environmental damage has provoked a renewed attachment to the sacred landscape among Bashkir Muslims. The sacred history of these hills is revisited, generating a new sense of connection and identification with the natural landscape. Thus, the environmental activism around the hills also corresponds to a process of rediscovering ancient Bashkir clan lineages and also spiritual lineages, for example a Sufi heritage. While attempts to protect the sacred hills are anchored in a rediscovery of Bashkir traditions, they also generate more modern and future-oriented imaginaries. Local activists are connected to transnational environmental networks and seek to generate an environmental-friendly tourism around the sites. They also want to promote the use of environmental-friendly technologies to protect them. The protection of the Bashkir sacred landscape is thus an example of how the re-attachment to a sacred landscape and traditions converges with the search for modern solutions to environmental problems.