At

IFI-CSH conference room (ground floor)

2 Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi – 110011

In her lucid and thought-provoking ethnography ‘In the Belly of the River’, problematising conflicts over development-induced displacement and rights to forests and land in the Narmada Valley in India, Amita Baviskar presents a paradox: ‘the pursuit and defence of honour is an absorbing social drama, an enactment of contested values and sentiments where everyone can play a lead role. However, another level of politics seeks to divert adivasis away from the infighting of the feud to channel their militancy against outside oppressors – the state and the market.’ (1995: 175). Honour is construed to be anchored in the community’s subliminal consciousness, is multi-layered, and an ethical domain of subject-making geared towards a gnawing yearning for freedom (Robbins 2012), which motivates collective action, overcoming local antagonisms and internal feuds. While cultural mores and moral values are far from static and constantly negotiated, they congeal into a stable equilibrium-like state in the face of obliteration momentarily, enabling the passage through a liminal phase as communitas grips their world, and reimagined thereafter. My doctoral project examines an anti-coal mining indigenous rights movement, that has spurred a community in the forests of central-eastern India in collectively organising themselves and building affective solidarity as a result. I am studying multiple world-making enactments or ontologies in the pluriverse, the transformation of values following the influx of capital, moral atmospheres of subaltern movements, moral emotions, and how the latter are being creatively adapted and deployed, thereby altering subjectivities. In addition, I focus on the politics and materiality of dispossession, compensation and resettlement.

Sahib Singh, 4^th year PhD Student in Anthropology at University College London (UCL). Research interests include: subaltern social movements, resource extraction, displacement, morality and ethics, medical anthropology, environmental law. Find more details at https://www.csh-delhi.com/team_member/sahib-singh/

For more info contact:

sahib[dot]singh[dot]20[at]ucl[dot]ac[dot]uk

joel[dot]cabalion[at]univ-tours[dot]fr