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Accepted Paper:
Science and “the third pole”: colonial legacies, climate change, and governance of Himalayan geology
Kapil Patil
The profound ecological transformations induced by climate change in the “The Third Pole – Himalaya is also enabling hitherto marginalised indigenous communities and small countries to decolonise highlands politics and securitise climate threats through science diplomacy networks.
Paper long abstract:
Frequently referred to as the “Third Pole” for its vast deposits of “ice and snow”, the Himalayan region presents an interesting though underexplored parallel in governing polar areas of the world. Despite its essential role in regional hydrology, and shaping climatic conditions of the South, Central and Southeast Asia, the “rooftop of the world” has been an epicentre of geostrategic contest between regional and global powers. Science has been central in the colonisation of the Indo-Tibetan plateau and in remaking the Himalayas in expanding the British empire. The Colonial project, nevertheless, persisted with postcolonial actors like India and China using scientific expeditions to claim the highlands of the Himalayas. The expansionist policies of the post-colonial reigns coupled with the Cold War divide thus afforded limited or no role to science diplomacy in mitigating contesting territorial claims that emerged after the end of colonial rule. Nonetheless, Science diplomacy is increasingly gaining prominence as sub-regional actors and communities seek to decolonise the Himalayan ecology amidst worsening climate impacts. The climate securitisation by borderland communities and small states like Nepal and Bhutan is redefining the third pole’s regional science diplomacy through expanding knowledge production networks. Exploring the ongoing decolonisation dynamic and new scientific production systems, the paper thus contends that emerging science diplomacy especially by hitherto marginalised actors seeks to disrupt colonial legacies and carve an autonomous space amidst persisting territorial contests.