Politics of the Anthropocene and Climate Crisis in India

Purendra Prasad is a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Chair in the School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Hyderabad, India. Prasad’s research spans critical agrarian studies, environmental studies, political economy of health and development, and urban studies. As part of a multi-country project, his recent work investigates wealth accumulation and the role of business elites in India. His latest book is Equity and Access: Health Care Studies in India (Oxford University Press, 2018).Lalatendu Keshari Das is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. His area of research spans agrarian studies, gender studies, and political ecology. His recent work looks at the practices of organic and natural farming in the Eastern Ghats of Odisha, India. Lalatendu is the recipient of Development in Practice Practitioner and Early Career Researcher Prize for 2024.

“The ecological crisis is above all a wicked political problem – one without a solution. If environment and capitalist economies are to be less at loggerheads, responses have to involve local realities, projects and people. University disciplines don’t help the revolutionary knowledge needed for this. In squarely examining an array of destructive political economic forces to be countered, their violent successes and failures -mirrored in development as resistance - this imaginative, interdisciplinary book breaks the mould and gives resolve to writers and the reader alike. What more can we ask of concerned and critical scholars? “ - Barbara Harriss-White, Emeritus Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford and Honorary Associate, Oxford Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, UK.“An excellent collection, each drawing from a distinct geographical and ecological setting, engages in conversation with the concept of the Anthropocene and climate change and its associated ideas, ideologies, power and practices based on its rich fieldwork-based empirical data. An apt lesson for researchers on how to engage in the intersection of environmental change, social theory and lived experiences.”- Virginius Xaxa, Former Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and Former Deputy Director, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati and a member of the National Advisory Council of the Government of India.“The alarming crisis of climate change has to be seen in the way it intersects with other crises- inequality, deprivation, authoritarianism, short-term profit-making, and others engendered by capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism. And conversely, solutions too will have to be intersectional, going beyond simplistic 'solutions' like renewable energy and carbon trading. This book does a great service by examining and going deep into these links, providing a nuanced view of how to deal with the climate (and related ecological) crises.”- Ashish Kothari, Eminent Indian Environmentalist, founder of Kalpavriksh, Associate Fellow of the Tellus, Research Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and co-author of the book Churning the Earth – The Making of Global India.

• Chapter 1. Contextualising the Debates of Anthropocene and Climate Change: A Critical Introduction Section 1: Climate Smart Infrastructure and the Anthropocene Chapter 2. ‘Climate-Smart’ Aquaculture in Coastal Regions of India : Capitalist Logic of Repair and Restoration Chapter 3. Caste Power and Land Grab: The Case of a Solar Power Plant in Assam Chapter 4. Land-water Grabbing and the Zero Electricity Generating Khuga Dam of Manipur, India Section 2: Urban Transformation and Social-Environmental Justice Chapter 5. From Dispossession to Resilience: Navigating Anthropocenic Spatial Justice Chapter 6. Imaginaries, Transformations, Realities: Death and Life of Nature in Peri-Urban Mumbai Chapter 7. Conceptualising Dalitbahujan Anthropocene: Nek Chand, Displacement, Waste, and Rocks for Environmental Imaginations Chapter 8 Green Fields to Grey Zones: Ripple Effects of Industrial Growth, Telangana, India Section 3: Ecofeminism / Ecotourism and Subaltern Practices Chapter 9. Debating Sustainable Development through Ecotourism in the Age of the Anthropocene: Community-based Ecotourism Projects in Chilika Lake, India Chapter 10. Beyond Ecofeminism: Examining New Norms in the Everyday Struggle of Tharu Women in Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh Chapter 11. Kantabaunsuni Temple in Damanjodi: An Ecofeminist Analysis of the Dialectics of Development and Conservation Section 4: Ethnicity and Environmental Transformations Chapter 12. Ethnoecology and Everyday Life in Northeast India: Lineages, Manifestations and Transformations Chapter 13. Development Interventions, Environmental Transformations and Emerging Crisis: Community Responses to the 'Transformations' in Nagaland Chapter 14. Climate Change and Associated Vulnerabilities: Impact of Relief Tourism on the Sundarbans