This DDRI project investigates a social movement led by indigenous youth to protect a sacred reserve threatened by hydropower development. Within geography, significant work has been done with regards to environmental social movements especially within the sub-discipline of political ecology. However the role of indigenous youth and social media technology in these movements is relatively under-theorized. Social media technology and the way young people interact with it is rapidly changing how these movements organize, interact with state authorities and build networks of support nationally and internationally. These interactions are important in analyzing strategies employed by marginalized minority groups in negotiating their rights with the state. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its exploration of how indigenous youth become political subjects through their interactions with state sponsored hydropower projects, social media technology and global indigenous politics. More specifically this research will explore three questions: How are indigenous youth asserting new political identities? What productive spaces of political action have opened up at the intersection of hydropower development and indigenous youth activism? How do state-led technology and indigenous activism interact with and adapt to each other? This research will use a mix-methods approach to answer these question- interviews with government officials, indigenous youth (both pro and anti-hydropower), ethnographic observation of the reserve and participatory documentary and photography. Data will be analyzed for the divergence and convergence of opinions of state and non-state actors. The documentary project will provide rich visual data into the cultural life of the reserve and shifting political identities of indigenous youth. This research will offer valuable insight into youth agency, natural resource struggles and shifting political identities and claims of marginalized groups.
The research site is based in the Eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim, India. While the research is region specific it has widespread implications as questions of indigeneity and marginalization are being echoed in several different contexts in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Findings from this study will be widely disseminated to academic audiences in Geography, South Asian Studies, Himalayan Studies and Political Ecology through key journals in these fields. These findings will be shared with environmental organizations and activist groups working closely with similarly marginalized communities. Upon completion of this research audio-visual materials will be compiled into a short documentary with the help of a local cinematographer and be shared with broader audiences. The researcher also plans to work closely with local organizations to encourage audio-visual media projects within the community and its use as an educational and research tool for both community members and other researchers. Due to the wide-ranging political and social consequences of hydropower development the researcher hopes to generate policy level debate at both the local and national level. Within the university the researcher plans to encourage participatory research methodologies using visual media for undergraduate and graduate classes. And finally as a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.
In the last decade the Indian Power ministry began construction on several hydropower projects in the geo-politically sensitive and seismically fragile Himalayan region. This region is also home to several indigenous and marginalized groups. Many of the challenges confronting these groups can be distilled in the struggles of their youth. In the Eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim indigenous Lepcha youth led a three year long protest against seven dams planned in the sacred reserve of Dzongu. Four of the seven dams were canceled as a result of the protests but their activism also left many young Lepchas uncertain of their future prospects in Sikkim where the state government is the single largest employer. I was also interested in how seismic instability around the dam sites was being interpreted by both activists and state technocrats. My research supported by this award was designed to explore the following three questions: How are indigenous youth asserting new political identities? What productive spaces of political action have opened up at the intersection of hydropower development and indigenous youth activism? How do state-led technology and indigenous activism interact with and adapt to each other? I conducted fieldwork for ten months in Sikkim from August 2013 to May 2014 during which I interviewed state technocrats, reserve elders, youth activists and non-activists youth in the village. This was also the period when Sikkim was preparing for state level elections in April 2014, making it an ideal time to conduct research. The broad outcomes of my research are as follows: 1) In Sikkim, young people and Lepcha youth activism have been part of the evolution of a more vibrant and democratic civil society in Sikkim. In my published work I have argued that the formation of indigeneity is directly affected by the struggles of unemployed young people and the material hardships they face. 2) Disasters and the state’s failure to manage them (and perhaps even aggravating the impact through development projects) have been crucial in drawing attention to the vulnerability of the pan-Himalayan region. In Sikkim though activists and planners might differ in their opinions on the scale and number of dams - most scientific expertise is critical of the present development in the state especially after the earthquake. In this context, risk and vulnerability are central in shaping both indigenous and technocratic frameworks about nature and development. 3) The question of aesthetics related to eco-tourism has become central to the ways in which indigenous youth are carving out self-employment alternatives. Indigenous youth are collaborating with local designers and architects to construct structures for eco-tourism using traditional methods and materials in opposition to state funded concrete housing. These intimate linkages between indigeneity and young people’s encounter with materials, technologies and spatial ideas open up new ways of thinking about environmental politics and indigeneity. Broadly, a central premise of my research is that ecological precarity has a direct bearing on marginalized young people’s lives, labor and politics. Drawing on ethnographic data from my research I have demonstrated in published work that young people’s bodies and futures are actively deployed in contestations over natural resources and material benefits between the State and indigenous groups. This research comes at a time when over 400 hydropower projects are planned and underway in the Indian Himalayan region. Climate change anxiety and its push for renewable energy has led to this push in lending activities around hydropower energy. This research seeks to address the struggles of Himalayan indigenous groups who have been under-researched with few scholars being attentive to the distinct nature of their political and cultural demands. Given the Himalayan region’s importance as South Asia’s water supply, its vulnerability to climate change and the marginalization of its political concerns, this research will provide important insights into the shifting environmental and political subjectivities of marginalized groups through the lens of youth agency.
