Contribution short abstract:

After defeating the Vedanta Corporation in 2013, the Dongaria Kondhs revived their traditional farming and weaving and renewed their sense of their rights to the forest. I will present ethnographic research on the Indigenous practice of symbiotic relationship with nature to combat climate change.

Contribution long abstract:

Indigenous people view land and natural resources as sacred –living, thinking, and acting beings. Indigenous land, forests, water, and mountains are currently under pressure, commodified, and objectified from the dramatic expansion of large-scale extraction activities and mindless development ventures taken up by states and profit-oriented multinational corporations. "Plantationocene" has broken the ties to place, disregarding the indigenous land-based knowledge and wisdom. Based on my fieldwork in Odisha, I will focus on the sacred logic of Dongaria Kondhs and the neighboring tribes to protect their holy mountain, Niyamagiri, the source of their food, water, livelihood, and spiritual identity. Previously, I have discussed mountains as powerful and sacred actors in indigenous people's efforts to organize and protect their regions from irrevocable destruction through mining activities (Pandey and Kingsolver, 2022).

The Dongaria Kondhs are trying to revive their traditional farming and weaving. With a renewed sense of their rights to the forest after fighting against Vedanta, a U.K.-based mining company, in 2013 and in collaboration with grassroots organizations, e.g., Living Farms, the tribe has resuscitated lost seed varieties and revitalized their symbiotic relationship with nature for sustainable farming and weaving. The Dongaria women, through their elaborate cultural rituals, are leading this initiative.

Based on ethnographic research, I will present Indigenous wisdom on their land, medicine, livelihood, and spiritual identity as the logic behind fighting against climate change, the coercive state, and profit-making corporations.