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Political ecology of Jharkhand conflicts
Author(s) -
Jewitt Sarah
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
asia pacific viewpoint
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.571
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1467-8373
pISSN - 1360-7456
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2008.00361.x
Subject(s) - political ecology , politics , natural resource , ecology , alienation , resource (disambiguation) , natural resource management , citizen journalism , political movement , perspective (graphical) , sociology , political science , political economy , law , biology , computer network , artificial intelligence , computer science
Although India's Jharkhand movement resists classification as either an ethnic or an environmental movement, it has, at different times, mobilised clear elements of both with frequently violent outcomes. This paper examines the movement from a political ecology perspective and focuses on violence arising from natural resource‐related grievances, notably land alienation, forest policy and employment from Jharkhand's mines. Drawing from political ecology's emphasis on the need to examine conflict from a range of different spatial scales, the paper emphasises the importance of a micro‐political ecology approach for understanding how locally based conflicts over natural resources can harden into more established grievances that can be mobilised politically as part of a wider and potentially violent protest movement. It is also suggested that micro‐political ecology approaches can assist participatory resource management initiatives in ameliorating local conflicts over access to resources, thus helping to prevent them from escalating into more widespread violence.