Paper short abstract:

This paper examines land conceptualisations amidst shifting environmental relations. Drawing from agrarian environments of South Asia and assemblage thinking, it looks at the ecological and material implications of two technologies of government: statistical enumeration and digital land governance.

Paper long abstract:

Land conceptualisation and categorisation questions have invigorated discussions on the ongoing radical environmental transformations. Recognising the interconnectedness of the agrarian and the environment, it is crucial for studies that take relational approaches to the environment that pay closer attention to land transformation mechanisms and consequent changes in environmental subjectivities.

This paper extends recent discussions on relational approaches to the environment in two ways. Firstly, it draws on the insights of assemblage thinking applied to the hybrid nature of agrarian environments in South Asia. Secondly, it incorporates the historical trajectories of changing 'technologies of government' under British colonial rule and independent India, shedding light on the reconfigurations of social, material, and ecological relations that define land.

Technologies of government mediate relationships between states, localities, communities, and the non-human constituents of the environment. In this study, I delineate the ecological and material implications of two cases: statistical enumeration of forests during British Colonial rule and digitalised land governance in contemporary India.

Many studies across disciplines have argued that numerical representations and statistical enumeration, as particular forms of power/knowledge, have played significant roles in shaping and constructing forests as a land-use category. Building on these and considering the increasing prevalence of digital technologies in land governance, this paper investigates how digital representations are remaking the relational aspects that constitute land. It explores the conceptual and material implications of the digitalized ecologies of land.