Date: Wednesday, 29 January 2025
Time: 4 p.m.
Venue: HSS Conference Hall
YouTube Livestreaming @ https://youtube.com/live/3xivP3yoKMQ?feature=share
Abstract:
Drawing on the recently published monograph, Slow Disaster: Political Ecology of Hazards and Everyday Life in the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam, this talk tells a story of how disasters are central to the making and unmaking of the Brahmaputra valley. It is based on long-drawn ethnographic research conducted in Majuli river island, one of the largest river islands in the world. Over the years, the Majuli landscape has undergone significant transformations due to the twin processes of flooding and riverbank erosion: massive loss of landmass, large-scale displacement and outmigration, and loss of local livelihoods and traditional knowledges. However, these transformations have been slow and incremental and have often gone unnoticed. This talk presents a theory of “slow disaster.” In doing so, it demonstrates the role of the state in the (re-)production of the Majuli “hazardscape” while presenting a political ecological narrative of the livelihood crises facing the island. The talk also takes the audience on a visual trip to the volatile, riverine geographies of Majuli – places that are evocative, too, of the harmony between humans and their non-human kins and the environment.
About the Speaker:
Mitul Baruah is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, and Environmental Studies at Ashoka University. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who has straddled the fields of geography, environmental studies, social work, and history, besides spending several years with an environmental NGO, working on the restoration of degraded commons. His research interests include political ecology, rivers and river islands, water, disaster and vulnerability, agrarian studies, and the state. Currently, he is finishing a documentary film based in Majuli.