Commoning the Established Order of Property: Reclaiming Fishing Commons in Mumbai

Kamath, Lalitha; Dubey, G. K.

doi:10.1177/2455747120972983

Cited by 5 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…It is these waters full of stuff, they would point out, that are full of ecological relations, that make it a fecund fishery. If the colonizing operations of urban government seeks to separate the city from the sea, the ongoing practices of indigenous fishers in Mumbai reclaim littoral regions to redefine, contest and common the anthroposea of Mumbai (Kamath and Dubey, 2020). As JT Roane points out in a different context, fishers also “defy the separation of the social from the ecological and quietly forward an ethos of collectivity and reciprocity despite the atomization, thingification, and disposability imposed by the state” (Roane, 2022: 229).…”

Section: Lobster Livesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthroposea: Planning future ecologies in Mumbai’s wetscapes

Anand

2023

Environ Plan D

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In this article, I describe Mumbai’s sea as an “anthroposea” – a sea made with ongoing anthropogenic processes across landwaters – to draw attention to the ways in which it troubles both urban planning and the making of environmental futures. I focus on three moments in which Mumbai’s more-than-human life now emerges in the anthroposea. First, I describe the surprising proliferations of lobsters, gulls, and fishers in a sewage outfall. Second, I draw attention to the city’s flourishing flamingo population amidst industrial effluents in the city’s industrial zone. Finally, the article floats towards a popular city beach where citizen scientists at Marine Life of Mumbai show the ways in which the city’s phenomenal biodiversity is making homes in and with the city’s plastic waste. I argue that these ongoing and dynamic relations between urban waste and more-than-human life make unstable and tenuous the modernist distinctions of nature/culture on which environmental and urban projects depend. The anthroposea does not easily permit the making of near futures. Instead, by crossing spatial scales and epistemological boundaries, the anthroposea holds the city and its citizens in the muddy materialities of an ongoing present; a present in which the vitalities of waste are intransigent, permanent, and generate life in the city’s landwaters.

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Section: Lobster Livesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthroposea: Planning future ecologies in Mumbai’s wetscapes

Anand

2023

Environ Plan D

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“…We understand commoning as a collective social practice to establish, manage, use, and maintain shared resources for collective ends (Fournier, 2013;Gibson-Graham et al, 2016). Specifically, we review critiques on commons theory against commoning perspectives that apply a political ecology approach (see for instance, Basurto & Lozano, 2021;DeVore, 2017;Gibson-Graham et al, 2016;Hall et al, 2014;Kamath & Dubey, 2020;Turner, 2017). Political ecology tends to examine conflict underpinning relationships that shape ecological change and governance, revealing the dynamics of struggle and network affiliations, attending to multi scalar and non-linear dynamics, but also rooted in historical antecedents of access and use of resources (Blaikie, 1999;Cleaver & de Koning, 2015;Paulson et al, 2003).…”

Section: Commoning and State Informalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, a commoning perspective foregrounds social practices of commoning instead of focusing on the 'goods' that are being governed (the commons). This slight but significant shift from noun to verb has profound implications because it emphasizes social and power relations around specific practices (De Angelis, 2017;Kamath & Dubey, 2020;Turner, 2017). Second, commoning opens up avenues for exploring informal networks and institutions that feature prominently in decentralization policymaking and implementation in post-colonial, developing, and resource-rich countries.…”

Section: Commoning and State Informalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, the concept of commoning entails continuous and dynamic processes, rather than a fixed arrangement or an 'equilibrium'. Commoning is something that has to be continuously maintained in changing conditions in order to be sustained (Agrawal, 2002;Boucquey & Fly, 2021;Eizenberg, 2012;Euler, 2018;Kamath & Dubey, 2020;Mosse, 2006). This framing helps us make sense of how the commons continuously faces pressures of enclosure from the state and capital, or a hybrid of the two in which -for instance -states lease large tracts of land for use by corporations in long-term contracts.…”

Section: Commoning As Social Practice and Relationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Placing the Commoning First: Getting Beyond the Patronage Trap in Natural Resource Decentralization Policies

Sirimorok,

Fisher,

Verheijen

et al. 2023

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Research on the commons have been an inspiration for initiatives on natural resource decentralization over the past three decades. Researchers are increasingly recognizing however, that these commons initiatives are mostly failing to support rights, improve livelihoods, and conserve natural resources. These “commons projects,” defined as approaches that claim to devolve natural resource governance to local institutions, have their origins in various formulations of theories of the commons but are usually interpreted and applied by states and donor organizations. This paper identifies and analyzes deficiencies in theories of the commons through the slight but significant refocusing on perspectives of commoning. We found that commons scholarship lacks a grounding in power relations, and furthermore, tends to portray commons-governing groups as homogenous communities enacting long-established practices. Conversely, a commoning perspective provides a more dynamic and relational approach, and thus distinctly centers political dimensions of collective practices among diverse groups of citizens. We also extend this argument by showing that a fundamental shift in understanding commoning will help advocate for, and anticipate what commoners can actually do in regions of the Global South undergoing widespread enclosures in the face of powerful informal patronage networks controlled by state power actors and interests.

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“…From the 1980s onward, as manufacturing declined, the city became a key site for services, finance, information, technology, entertainment, and media. While a large proportion of its population live in informal settlements, studies in recent years have focused on the neoliberal transformation of its coastal ecosystems and resource commons on which the city's earlier inhabitants-the Kolishave traditionally laid claim (Parthasarathy, 2011;Kamath and Dubey, 2020;Parikh, 2020). The Kolis are artisanal, small scale fishing communities who have enjoyed de facto and de jure rights over the coastal commons which have served as spaces for living, livelihood, and as community spaces.…”

Section: The Political Ecology Of Covid-19: Crisis and Response Among...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Ecology of COVID-19 and Compounded Uncertainties in Marginal Environments

Mehta¹,

Parthasarathy²,

Pickard³

et al. 2022

Front. Hum. Dyn.

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In this paper, we use a political ecology lens to look at how COVID-19 adds to a set of existing uncertainties and challenges faced by vulnerable people in the marginal environments of coastal India. Over the last few decades, local people have been systematically dispossessed from resource commons in the name of industrial, urban and infrastructure development or conservation efforts, leading to livelihood loss. We build on our current research in the TAPESTRY (https://tapestry-project.org/) project in coastal Kutch and Mumbai to demonstrate how the pandemic has laid bare structural inequalities and unequal access to public goods and natural resources. The impacts of COVID-19 have intersected with ongoing food, water and climate crises in these marginal environments, threatening already fragile livelihoods, and compounding uncertainties and vulnerabilities. Extreme weather events such as cyclones, droughts, heatwaves and floods in the last couple of decades have also compounded the problems faced in these regions, affecting seasonal migration patterns. We demonstrate how responses from “above” have been inadequate, failing to address problems, or arriving too late. Authoritarian leaders have used the pandemic to “other” and victimise certain groups and polarise society along religious lines. Lockdowns and covid restrictions have been used to surreptitiously complete environmentally destructive infrastructure projects, while avoiding resistance and opposition from affected local communities, who have also been subject to increased surveillance and restrictions on movement. While state responses have often been unpredictable and inadequate, there has been an outburst of local forms of mutual aid, solidarity, and civic action. There are also many examples of resilience at the local level, especially amongst communities that have largely relied on subsistence production. Despite the acute suffering, COVID-19 has also prompted civic groups, activists, and local communities to reflect on the possibilities for reimagining transformative pathways towards just and sustainable futures.

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Commoning the Established Order of Property: Reclaiming Fishing Commons in Mumbai

Cited by 5 publications

References 7 publications

Anthroposea: Planning future ecologies in Mumbai’s wetscapes

Anthroposea: Planning future ecologies in Mumbai’s wetscapes

Placing the Commoning First: Getting Beyond the Patronage Trap in Natural Resource Decentralization Policies

The Political Ecology of COVID-19 and Compounded Uncertainties in Marginal Environments

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