Ecological ethnicity in the making: Developmentalist hegemonies and emergent identities in India

Abstract

Why are certain ecologically exploited regions in middle India also the hotbeds of ethnoregionalism? Why are ethnic groups fighting to stop big dams or to gain control over their land and forest resources, demanding autonomy of governance at the community and regional level? More significantly, why would the resolution of ecological conflict require self‐governance of communities? I explicate these questions by providing an ecological reinterpretation of ethnic movements in middle India, particularly in Jharkhand and the Narmada valley. I show that while ethnicity might be the form in which they are expressed, these movements are firmly grounded in ecological subordination. What is emerging is an “ecological ethnicity” that goes beyond a narrowly defined ethnic politics. Ecological ethnicity derives further impetus when it enters into relations of equivalence with other historical subjects who are also subordinated in different equations of power. Embedded in a relatively autonomous subaltern space, ecological ethnicity discursively contests the very foundation of the develop‐mentalist state.