SCALE, PLACE AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE ALONG INDIA’S NARMADA RIVER

This paper focuses on the struggles being waged by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a rural social movement opposing displacement due to dams along India’s Narmada River. Building a comparison between two major anti-dam struggles within the Andolan, around the Sardar Sarovar and Maheshwar dams, this study seeks to show that multi-sited social movements pursue a variety of scale and place-based strategies and this multiplicity is key to the possibilities for progressive change that they embody. The paper highlights three aspects of the Andolan. First, the Andolan has successfully combined environmental networks and agricultural identities across the space of its struggle. The Andolan became internationally celebrated when its resistance led to the World Bank withdrawing funding for the Sardar Sarovar dam in 1993. This victory was viewed as a consequence of the Andolan’s successful utilization of transnational environmental networks. However, the Andolan has also intervened in agrarian politics within India and this role of the Andolan emerges when the struggle against the Maheshwar dam is considered. Second, this paper examines the role played by the Andolan in building a national movement against displacement. Given that India’s Supreme Court gave permission for the continued construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam in 2000, the power of the state to push through destructive development projects cannot be underestimated. The national level thus remains an important scale for the Andolan’s struggle leading to the formation of social movement networks and the construction of collective identities around experiences of rural and urban displacement. Third, this paper reflects on how common access to the Narmada river also provides a material basis for the formation of a collective identity, one which can be used to address the class divisions that characterize the Andolan’s membership. Overall, the paper aims to contribute to the study of social movements by showing how attachments to multiple geographies ensure that a movement’s potential futures always exceed the nature of its present forms of resistance

Environmental justice implications of industrial hazardous waste generation in India: a national scale analysis

While rising air and water pollution have become issues of widespread public concern in India, the relationship between spatial distribution of environmental pollution and social disadvantage has received less attention. This lack of attention becomes particularly relevant in the context of industrial pollution, as India continues to pursue industrial development policies without sufficient regard to its adverse social impacts. This letter examines industrial pollution in India from an environmental justice (EJ) perspective by presenting a national scale study of social inequities in the distribution of industrial hazardous waste generation. Our analysis connects district-level data from the 2009 National Inventory of Hazardous Waste Generating Industries with variables representing urbanization, social disadvantage, and socioeconomic status from the 2011 Census of India. Our results indicate that more urbanized and densely populated districts with a higher proportion of socially and economically disadvantaged residents are significantly more likely to generate hazardous waste. The quantity of hazardous waste generated is significantly higher in more urbanized but sparsely populated districts with a higher proportion of economically disadvantaged households, after accounting for other relevant explanatory factors such as literacy and social disadvantage. These findings underscore the growing need to incorporate EJ considerations in future industrial development and waste management in India

Linking Industrial Hazards and Social Inequalities: Environmental Injustice in Gujarat, India

Industrial development in India has rarely been studied through the perspective of environmental justice (EJ) such that the association between industrial development and significant economic and social inequalities remains to be examined. Our article addresses this gap by focusing on Gujarat in western India, a leading industrial state that exemplifies the designation of India as an “emerging economy.” We link the geographic concentration of industrial facilities classified as major accident hazard (MAH) units, further subdivided by size (large or medium/small) and ownership (public or private), to the socio-demographic composition of the population at the subdistrict (taluka) level. Generalized estimating equations (GEEs) are used to analyze statistical associations between MAH unit density and explanatory variables related to the economic and social status of the residential population at the subdistrict level. Our results indicate a significant relationship between presence of socially disadvantaged populations (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) and density of all types of MAH units, except those associated with the public sector. Higher urbanization and lower home ownership are also found to be strong predictors of MAH unit density. Overall, our article represents an important step towards understanding the complexities of environmental inequalities stemming from Gujarat’s industrial economy

Migrant Women and the Distribution of their Income in Hubei Province, China

Alors que les contributions des femmes chinoises à l’économie mondialisée ont été mises en valeur dans de nombreuses études, il est également important de comprendre la signification de leur travail pour les femmes elles-mêmes. Notre approche est ici de retracer la manière dont elles partagent leurs revenus entre leurs propres besoins et ceux de leur famille. Cet article se penche sur le cas des femmes migrantes travaillant dans les ateliers textiles de Wuhan, Hubei, de façon à examiner comment leurs salaires sont répartis entre dépenses personnelles et envois aux foyers natal et marital, et comme cette répartition diffère entre femmes célibataires et mariées. Cela fournit une base de compréhension de l’évolution possible des relations traditionnelles entre les sexes, du fait de la valeur économique croissante du travail des femmes. Cet examen de l’utilisation du revenu des femmes permet aussi d’attirer l’attention sur les flux géographiques des revenus dans la Chine d’aujourd’hui, puisque les femmes migrantes se situent non seulement entre foyers natal et marital, mais aussi entre des résidences urbaine et rurale. Plus généralement, cette recherche vise à enrichir les théories de la migration par une compréhension croisée des aspects économiques et sociaux des expériences et processus sexués de la migration en Chine.While contributions made by China’s women workers to the global economy have been emphasized in many studies, it is also important to understand the meanings of such work to women themselves. One approach is to trace the ways in which women distribute their wages between their own needs and the needs of their family. This article focuses on migrant women working in textile factories in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, in order to examine how women’s wages are distributed between personal spending and contributions to natal and marital homes, and how such distributions vary between single and married women. It thus provides a basis for understanding possible transformations in traditional gender relations given the increasing economic value of women’s work. This examination of women’s income disposal also draws attention to spatial flows of income in contemporary China, since migrant women are poised not just between marital and natal homes, but also between urban and rural homes. More broadly, this research aims to inform theories of migration through an interlinked understanding of economic and social aspects of gendered migration processes and experiences in Chin

Social Inequities in Urban Heat and Greenspace: Analyzing Climate Justice in Delhi, India

Climate change and rapid urbanization currently pose major challenges for equitable development in megacities of the Global South, such as Delhi, India. This study considers how urban social inequities are distributed in terms of burdens and benefits by quantifying exposure through an urban heat risk index (UHRI), and proximity to greenspace through the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), at the ward level in Delhi. Landsat derived remote sensing imagery for May and September 2011 is used in a sensitivity analysis of varying seasonal exposure. Multivariable models based on generalized estimating equations (GEEs) reveal significant statistical associations (p < 0.05) between UHRI/NDVI and several indicators of social vulnerability. For example, the proportions of children (β = 0.922, p = 0.024) and agricultural workers (β = 0.394, p = 0.016) are positively associated with the May UHRI, while the proportions of households with assets (β = −1.978, p = 0.017) and households with electricity (β = −0.605, p = 0.010) are negatively associated with the May UHRI. In contrast, the proportions of children (β = 0.001, p = 0.633) and agricultural workers (β = 0.002, p = 0.356) are not significantly associated with the May NDVI, while the proportions of households with assets (β = 0.013, p = 0.010) and those with electricity (β = 0.008, p = 0.006) are positively associated with the May NDVI. Our findings emphasize the need for future research and policies to consider how socially vulnerable groups are inequitably exposed to the impact of climate change-related urban heat without the mitigating effects of greenspace