Nationalizing Space: Cosmetic Federalism and the Politics of Development in Northeast India

Until recently Arunachal Pradesh on India's Northeast frontier was relatively insulated from the processes associated with development. State institutions were barely present during the colonial era. In 1962, however, India and China fought a border war in this area: this war, along with signs of unrest among indigenous peoples in the neighbourhood, exposed India's vulnerabilities in the region. Since then, nationalizing this frontier space by extending the institutions of the state all the way into the international border region has become the thrust of Indian policy. The region's governmental infrastructure was fundamentally redesigned to put in place what can only be described as a cosmetic federal regional order with a number of small states dependent on the central government's largess and subject to monitoring by India's Home Ministry. The new regional order has put Arunachal firmly on a developmentalist track, which has enabled India to meet its national security goals, but at a significant cost to the region.     

Spatial Politics in Practice: The Style and Substance of Environmental Direct Action

According to many commentators, Environmental Direct Action (EDA) has become a growing political force in recent years. This paper explores the style and substance of EDA by focusing on one indicative example of EDA activity, the anti-quarry campaign at Ashton Court, Bristol, UK. The paper will argue that EDA is a political practice constituted by an imbroglio of premises, practices, identities, and modes of organisation that in a variety of ways asserts its difference to those of the liberal democratic system. The paper will go on to show that EDA is politically and geographically significant as it has been successful in taking and making space in line with its own cultural values. Through being successful in this way, EDA has entered into a dialogic relationship with the political practices of the State that can offer a useful tracing of how power struggles are played out in material and symbolic space.     

Situating Political Agronomy: The Knowledge Politics of Hybrid Rice in India and Uganda

The emergence of ‘political agronomy’ — a research agenda that interrogates the knowledge politics through which agronomic debates are constructed, shaped and contested — has added a new and important tool for the analysis of agricultural research and policy making in development contexts. This article seeks to advance the scope of political agronomy by providing an enhanced framework to link the analysis of agronomic knowledge production to the study of new agricultural technologies in practice. Using case studies of hybrid rice promotion in southern India and western Uganda, the article illustrates the power relations and unanticipated outcomes that accompanied the translation of agronomic research into agrarian settings characterized by pronounced social polarization and marked environmental transformations. These case studies affirm how the starkly uneven outcomes of technological change refract back into the politics of agronomic research and extension as both researchers and policy makers react to the unintended impacts of previous interventions when designing future agendas.     

Heterogeneity,Group Size and Collective Action: The Role of Institutions in Forest Management

Collective action for sustainable management among resource‐dependent populations has important policy implications. Despite considerable progress in identifying factors that affect the prospects for collective action, no consensus exists about the role played by heterogeneity and size of group. The debate continues in part because of a lack of uniform conceptualization of these factors, the existence of non‐linear relationships, and the mediating role played by institutions. This article draws on research by scholars in the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research network which demonstrates that some forms of heterogeneity do not negatively affect some forms of collective action. More importantly, IFRI research draws out the interrelations among group size, heterogeneity, and institutions. Institutions can affect the level of heterogeneity or compensate for it. Group size appears to have a non‐linear relationship to at least some forms of collective action. Moreover, group size may be as much an indicator of institutional success as a precondition for such success.     

The Politics of Recognition and Redistribution: Development,Tribal Identity Politics and Distributive Justice in India's Jharkhand

This article illustrates how the potential of recognition‐based politics to achieve distributive justice is determined by political structures and the power relations that constitute them. In response to Nancy Fraser's framework of social justice, it shows that the meaningful coordination of identity‐based claims with distributive justice is constrained — not only by the content of the claims themselves, but also because redistributive demands are subverted through competing pursuits for power and legitimacy between rival political factions. The article describes how the separate‐state movement for Jharkhand in Eastern India was de‐radicalized by three instruments, namely, the reservation system, cultural nationalism and state development discourse. This explains why distributive measures do not feature prominently in the Jharkhand state and why recognition politics has taken a disciplined form in the electoral mainstream while distributive politics continues to be pursued through violent and extra‐parliamentary means.     

Cadastral Politics: The Making of Community‐Based Resource Management in Zimbabwe and Mozambique

Projects promoting community‐based management of natural resources frequently encourage local smallholders to share flora, fauna, or land forms with state agencies and/or private companies. Ideals of common property and moral economy have inspired this agenda and helped spread it globally. In Southern Africa, however, the general model of shared landscapes has collided with a bitter history of white colonization and land grabbing. This article recounts the rise and fall of one CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) project in eastern Zimbabwe. There, cadastral politics — struggles over the bounding and control of land — overwhelmed negotiations for joint management and eco‐tourism. Across the border, in Mozambique, community‐based resource management has engaged with cadastral politics in a more fruitful fashion. In the midst of latter‐day Afrikaner colonization, this project mapped smallholders’ claims to land. Thus, the Zimbabwean project ignored territorial conflict and ultimately succumbed to it. The Mozambican project jumped into the fray, with some success. On past or current settler frontiers, community‐based management may learn from this lesson: dispense with an ideology of sharing and join the rough‐and‐tumble of cadastral politics.