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Anthropology and Environmental Debate: Reflections on Science, Resource Nationalism, and News Reporting

2006; Routledge; Volume: 5; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14736480600939298

1557-3036

Kelly D. Alley,

Indigenous Studies and Ecology

Abstract Notes 1. Trevor W. Purcell, “Public Anthropology: An Idea Searching for a Reality,” Transforming Anthropology Vol. 9, No. 2 (2002), pp. 30–33. 2. See David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 3. See, for example, the University of California press series in Public Anthropology at www.ucpress.edu and the American Anthropological Association's web page for information on the five priority areas at www.aaanet.org. There is an MA in Public Anthropology at American University, www.american.edu, and a concentration at the University of Oregon. There are also programs that emphasize this focus in many other university and college departments. 4. See for example Talal Asad, Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1973); Gerald Berreman, “Is Anthropology Alive? Social Responsibility in Social Anthropology,” Current Anthropology Vol. 9, No. 5 (1968), pp. 391–6; J. Peter Brosius, “On the Practice of Transnational Cultural Critique,” Identities Vol. 6, No. 2–3 (1999), pp. 179–200; James Clifford and George E. Marcus, Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Michael M. J. Fischer, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003); Ann Grodzins Gold, “Environment/Ritual/Research Ethics: Crisscrossing Issues in Anthropology and Religious Studies,” Research Ethics and Environmental Health. www.researchethics.org; Dorothy L. Hodgson, “Critical Interventions: Dilemmas of Accountability in Contemporary Ethnographic Research,” Identities Vol. 6, No. 2–3 (1999), pp. 201–24; George E. Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986). 5. Fischer, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, p. 3. 6. Kelly D. Alley, On the Banks of the Ganga: When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). 7. Vandana Shiva, Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002). 8. Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living (New York: The Modern Library, 1999). 9. There are many sources of public information so I list only a few here, written by the authors mentioned above and by a few others. Ramaswamy Iyer has written many relevant policy articles, among them: Ramaswamy R. Iyer, “Linking of Rivers: Judicial Activism or Error?” Economic and Political Weekly, November 16, 2002, and Water Perspectives, Issues, Concerns (Sage: New Delhi, 2003). Other articles include:Shripad Dharmadhikary, Water: Private, Limited: Fundmamental Issues in Privatisation and Coporatisation of Water in India (Badwani, Madhya Pradesh: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, 2002); Sudhirendar Sharma, “Delhi Calls Interlinking of Rivers Rajiv Gandhi's Cherished Dream?” The New Nation, February 14, 2005, p. 2; South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, “The Mindlessness called River Linking Proposals” (Delhi, May 2003), p. 5; Rahul Kumar, “Indian Water Activists Launch Anti-Privatization Campaign,” OneWorld South Asia, February 7, 2006; Shahid Alam, “Concern over The Ganga,” The New Nation, September 22, 2005; “Linking of Indian Rivers: Some Concerns and Issues,” Samya Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi: Uthra Print Communications; “Proceedings of the Seminar on ‘Interlinking of Rivers’” (Erode: Vethathiri Publications, March 21, 2003), Pamphlet; “Linking Rivers, De-linking India: Two Day National Workshop on the Proposed Inter Linking of Rivers in India, 12th and 13th July 2003, Theme Papers,” Chalakudy Puzha Samrakshana Samithi and South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, Thrissur; “Inter-linking of rivers will disturb geography of nation,” The New Sunday Express, Kochi, July 13, 2003; Satyen Mohapatra, “Linking of Rivers Can Affect Ecology, Warns WWF Chief,” Hindustan Times, February 10, 2003; “River-linking Plan to Have Big Impact on Environment,” Indian Express, Chandigarh, May 5, 2003; Jayanto Bandopadhyay, “And Quiet Flows the River Project,” SaciWaters, South Asian Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies at www.saciwaters.org/Jayanta.html. In 2004, the proceedings of an international conference on regional cooperation on transboundary rivers was published and includes many good scientific and public interest reports: M. FerozeAhmed, Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, and Md. Khalequzzaman, eds., Regional Cooperation on Transboundary Rivers: Impact of the Indian River-linking Project (Dhaka: Mati ar Manush, 2004). See also Bhim Subba and Kishor Pradhan, eds., Disputes Over the Ganga: A Look at Potential Water-Related Conflicts in South Asia (Kathmandu, Nepal: Panos, 2004). There are also a number of publications available online through the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People associated with Himanshu Thakkar (www.narmada.org/sandrp/), the Friends of River Narmada associated with Medha Patkar (www.narmada.org, the Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group (www.kalpavriksh.org), PANOS Institute South Asia (www.panos.org.np), Eco-Friends (www.ecofriends.org), the Center for Science and Environment (www.cse.org), and the Sankat Mochan Foundation associated with Dr. Veer Bhadra Misra (http://members.tripod.com/sankatmochan/). 10. See Imran Ali, The Punjab under Colonialism 1885–1947 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha, eds., Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995); Amita Baviskar, In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Amita Baviskar, “Tribal Politics and Discourses of Indian Environmentalism,” in Paul Greenough and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, eds., Nature in the Global South: Environmental Projects in South and Southeast Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003); Dharmadhikary, Water, Private Limited; David Gilmartin, “Models of the Hydraulic Environment: Colonial Irrigation, State Power and Community in the Indus Basin,” in Arnold and Guha, eds., Nature, Culture, Imperialism, pp. 210–36; Michael Mann, “Ecological Change in North India: Deforestation and Agrarian Distress in the Ganga–Jamna Doab 1800–1850,” Environment and History Vol. 1, No. 2 (June 1995), pp. 201–20; K. Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Agrawal, eds., Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003). 11. Brosius, “On the Practice of Transnational Cultural Critique”; Greenough and Lowenhaupt Tsing, eds., Nature in the Global South, pp. 4–8; Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 12. Tsing, Friction, p. x. 13. J. Peter Brosius, “Voices for the Borneo Rain Forest: Writing the History of an Environmental Campaign,” in Greenough and Lowenhaupt Tsing, eds., Nature in the Global South. 14. Baviskar, “Tribal Politics and Discourses of Indian Environmentalism.” 15. Susan M. Darlington, “The Ordination of a Tree: The Buddhist Ecology Movement in Thailand,” Ethnology Vol. 37 (1998), pp. 1–15; see also Gary Gardner, Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for a Sustainable World Worldwatch Paper No. 164 (December 2003). 16. See also Peter M. Haas, Saving the Mediterranean: the Politics of International Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992). 17. Kelly D. Alley, “The Making of a River Linking Plan in India: Suppressed Science and Spheres of Expert Debate,” India Review Vol. 3, No. 3 (2004), pp. 210–238. 18. Letter to the President, May 2, 2005, signed by Medha Patkar, L. C. Jain, Kuldip Nayar, Major General Vombatkare, Himanshu Thakkar, Ramaswamy Iyer. The signatories to the letter were: Medha Patkar, C. Jain, Kuldip Nayar, Major General S. G. Vombatkere, Himanshu Thakkar, and Ramaswamy R. Iyer. 19. Remarks made by a Rajyasabha member on April 20, 2005 bear this out. On that day, Shri Rairam Ramesh of Andra Pradesh stated: Sir, there is an Integrated Water Resource Development Plan. This is the Report of the National Commission for Water Resource Development set up by the Ministry of Water Resources that submitted its Report in September 1999. Sir, I am just reading from page 9 of its Summary. This is an official, Government of India document. This was submitted to the Ministry of Water Resources. And it is so confidential that when I asked for this Report, without casting aspersions on anybody, I should say, I got a small note from the Ministry, hand written, saying that “Volume-II is highly confidential for which a specific request has to be made, and get the written approval of the Secretary or the Minister.” But I did manage to get Volume-I, which is obviously in the public domain. What does Volume-I say? Volume-I says: “The Himalayan river linking data is not freely available, but on the basis of public information, it appears that the Himalayan river linking component is not feasible for the period of review up to 2050.” 20. See, for example, discussions of best practice in the report by the World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making, The Report of the World Commission on Dams, November (London: Earthscan, 2000). Many public interest lawyers and citizens working in the high courts and Supreme Court invoke the constitutional fundamental right to life to argue environmental cases for better resource management. 21. Haas, Saving the Mediterranean. 22. See Ahmed et al., Regional Cooperation on Transboundary Rivers and www.fao.org/landandwater/aglw/waterquality/waterlogging.stm for a discussion of waterlogging. 23. Robert Borofsky, Yanomami: the Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn From it. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 97. 24. See Ali, Punjab Under Colonialism; Alley, “The Making of a River Linking Plan”; Gilmartin, “Models of the Hydraulic Environment”; Mann, “Ecological Change in North India”; Iyer, Water Perspectives, Issues, Concerns. 25. On colonial and early postcolonial periods, see Daniel Klingensmith, “Building India's ‘Modern Temples’: Indians and Americans in the Damodar Valley Corporation, 1945–60,” in K. Sivaramakrishnan and Arun Agrawal, eds., Regional Modernities: The Cultural Politics of Development in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003); Sivaramakrishnan and Agrawal, Regional Modernities. 26. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, pp. 78–9. 27. Baldev Raj Nayar, Globalization and Nationalism: The Changing Balance in India's Economic Policy 1950–2000 (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001); see also www.bjp.org/manifes/chap6.htm for a BJP manifesto statement. 28. Alley, “The Making of a River Linking Plan in India,” pp. 210–18. 29. Nayar, Globalization and Nationalism, pp. 224, 233. 30. See Iyer, Water Perspectives, Issues, Concerns, and Subba and Pradhan, Disputes over the Ganga. 31. The National Policy of Hydropower Development states that: “The hydroelectric power potential in the North Eastern Region is enormous. Out of an exploitable potential of 63,257 MW as assessed by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), only 1,011 MW has been developed so far. Thus, out of the available exploitable hydroelectric power potential in the region, only about 1.6% has been developed” (see Manju Menon and Kanchi Kohli (compliers), Large Dams for Hydropower in Northeast India: A Dossier (New Delhi: South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People and Kalpavriksh, 2005). 32. See the Asian Development Bank's report, Emerging Global Water Issues at: www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/Water/emerging_global.asp. 33. See Communicating Anthropology at www.sciencesites.com/CASC. 34. See www.sciencesitescom.com/CASC/code.html. 35. The related diseases in cows and humans are Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in cows and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Classic (CJD) Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans. See Alan C. F. Colchester and Nancy T. H. Colchester, “The Original of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: Human Prion Disease Hypothesis,” The Lancet Vol. 366 (September 2005). 36. “Did BSE in the UK Originate from the Indian Subcontinent?” The Lancet Vol. 366, September 3, 2005, p. 790–91. A report in the online news source, Red Herring, titled, “Did Mad Cow Start in People?” September 2, 2005, reads: The Colchesters criticize the main theory of BSE's origins, by which a similar disease in sheep, called scrapie, changed in such a way that it could infect cattle. They say that more than 270 cases of scrapie have been examined, but none bear the characteristics that would link it to BSE. However, Susarla K. Shankar, professor of neuropathology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, in Bangalore, India, has several problems with the new hypothesis. “Personally, I think that the evidence is not strong enough. It is a little far-fetched,” he told RedHerring.com. “The Ganges is infested with crocodiles. Most of the bodies are destroyed there. “Successful transmission by feeding animals with this purportedly infective tissue seems unjustified, especially as pooling with other animal protein would have occurred in the meat-bone meal exported to the U.K. and could conceivably result in an enormous and unspecified dilution that would greatly reduce infectivity,” he added. Professor Shankar is also concerned that such a theory could be misconstrued and cause political repercussions. “I think that until it is studied properly, they should not spread the word,” he said. The British researchers too are aware of the diplomatic tensions their theory could spark. “Both exporting and importing countries are likely to be sensitive to the implications of our hypotheses, and may feel [pressured] to issue denials without adequate investigation,” said the paper. “We do not claim that our theory is proved, but unquestionably warrants further investigation.” 37. See the report “Mad Cow Disease: Could BSE have come from Human Remains Mixed into Cattle Feed?” BBC Newsnight, September 1, 2005 (archived at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4204180.stm).