A paradox of the ‘community’: Contemporary processes of participatory forest conservation in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR) region of West Bengal

Sen, Amrita and Pattanaik, Sarmistha (2019) A paradox of the ‘community’: Contemporary processes of participatory forest conservation in the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (SBR) region of West Bengal. Environmental Sociology, 5 (1). pp. 33-46. ISSN 2325-1042

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Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive critique of the culturalist idealizations of community, associated with an essentially tenuous version of environmentalism. To this end, it analyses an ‘eco-governmentality’, observed in the implementation of joint forest management (JFM) policy in India and, in doing so, engages with a rethinking on the historical definitions of community. An explanation of community, popularized by the works of pioneering sociologists like Ferdinand Tonnies and Louis Wirth, had largely built on some immutable dimensions. Most of such dimensions offered are organized on the notion that communities are intractable as well as organic, inhabit a distinct geographical location and have a socio-cultural system relatively undisturbed by external forces. The present study, based on empirical observations from the eco-governmentality of JFM in India, brings in insights to critique the aforementioned line of thought. It offers two levels of insights: (1) a collective can represent itself as a community through shared experiences of marginalization as well as subject-formation, (2) the solidarity of a collective as a community is often invoked as a ‘moral rhetoric’, to ‘exploit the political obligations that the government have for looking after the poor and the underprivileged section of the population’.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Sen, Amrita and Pattanaik, Sarmistha
Document Language:	Language English
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Conservation, communities, eco-governmentality, forests, fishers, JFM, livelihoods, SBR
Subjects:	Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Communities Social sciences > Political Science > Public policy Social sciences > Law > Labor, social, education & cultural law > Miscellaneous social problems and services > Environmental protection
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > Research Centre > Centre for Urban Ecological Sustainability
Full Text Status:	None
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/7224
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1519883

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