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Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India

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Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2016 Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India Priya R. Chandrasekaran Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/721 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MILLETS FROM THE MARGINS: VALUE, KNOWLEDGE AND THE SUBALTERN PRACTICE OF BIODIVERSITY IN UTTARAKHAND, INDIA by PRIYA R. CHANDRASEKARAN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 2016 PRIYA R. CHANDRASEKARAN Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ii MILLETS FROM THE MARGINS: VALUE, KNOWLEDGE AND THE SUBALTERN PRACTICE OF BIODIVERSITY IN UTTARAKHAND, INDIA by PRIYA RAJALAKSHMI CHANDRASEKARAN This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Anthropology to satisfy the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Vincent Crapanzano _________________ ______________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Dr. Gerald Creed _________________ ______________________________ Date Executive Officer Dr. Marc Edelman Dr. Kate Crehan Dr. Kandice Chuh Dr. Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan (External Reader) Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract MILLETS FROM THE MARGINS: VALUE, KNOWLEDGE AND THE SUBALTERN PRACTICE OF BIODIVERSITY IN UTTARAKHAND, INDIA by Priya R. Chandrasekaran Adviser: Professor Vincent Crapanzano Millets from the Margins: Value, Knowledge and the Subaltern Practice of Biodiversity in Uttarakhand, India analyzes what is at stake for small-scale, predominantly women, farmers as local varieties of rainfed food grains such as finger millet are being newly commodified and valued as a biodiversity resource. With support from a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, I conducted seventeen months of ethnographic research with farmers, activists, scientists, NGO leaders, government officials, transnational functionaries and agribusiness representatives in segregated yet interconnected realms ranging from a village in the Himalayan foothills to transnational institutions in Rome. This work demonstrates how, as environmental conditions like drought become more generalized and publicized, crops cultivated to meet the changing needs of agrarian producers long deemed “unproductive” to capitalist agriculture are being recognized as necessary for humanity’s survival. In other words, plant life once categorized as primitive, coarse and unfit for human consumption is now imbued with the potential to drive human “progress” and secure human futures. Though the marginalized grains in my study – known in Uttarakhand as mandua/koda and madhira/janghora (barnyard millet) – are also becoming nationally and globally visible, they still grow at the periphery of these processes. Geographically, this “periphery” is rural Kumaon and Garhwal, the two ethno-linguistic sides of the small and iv mountainous north Indian state. Economically, it is a place of compounded marginality. This region has been cast as feminine and unproductive, a reservoir of “natural” resources and a place where small-scale farm work has long been perceived to be of little consequence. For precisely these reasons, it is among the many places where the externalized costs of capitalist accumulation strategies onto the dual realms of the environment and the household converge. Moving from an examination of the trifecta marginalization of particular plants, people and places, I problematize the concept of “biodiversity” and theorize the “subaltern practice of biodiversity” as a multi-scalar human and interspecies relation in which power and uncertainty are always at play. By doing so, I disrupt the idea that grains and seeds have “genetic material,” “nutritional attributes” or “climate resilience” distinct from the human contribution to these qualities. The subaltern practice of biodiversity calls attention to aesthetics, temporality and everyday life, understanding these as vital to democratic and sustainable human futures. If an analysis of millets from the margins complicates narratives of capitalist development and commodification, it also challenges assumptions that only things that have been or can be "scaled up," mapped or listed on GDP graphs matter in a national or global frame. The ethnography of this work conforms to the life it depicts, emulating forms of receptivity, open-endedness and sensory attunement. Through the narrative, I aim to cultivate a manner of thinking that problematizes commodity logic and “inevitable” refrains of history or “progress” and to enter into spaces of nonlinear logic, extended family ways of relating and temporal attunement to multiple species. I attend to “messy” and noneconomic aspects of everyday life, which are often out-framed or rendered “unnecessary” by capitalist ideologies but which are in fact fundamental to socio-environmental relations. In each chapter, the narrative form reflects (and has emerged out of) aspects of the social relations that underpin its content. Thus, each chapter engages differently with ethnographic material, time and space. As the argument of this work does not follow a linear trajectory, this work invites the reader to participate in a shared labor. v Dedication for the dahlias that grow in my father’s garden and beside homes in Uttarakhand you wouldn’t understand any of this, and you know it already vi Acknowledgments Thank you to the farmers and the families who spent time with me during my visits to Uttarakhand between 2011-2015. With your humor, generosity, intuition and insight, you taught me about mountains, agriculture, animals, nourishment, human relationships and life. I hope the ideas and text that follows do justice to the lessons. to mandua, madhira, dhan, gehu, kala bhatt, lobiya, rajma, pahari kakdi, til, kafal, haldi and all the grains, pulses, oilseeds and spices that grow in the hills. You are my teachers too. to the activists I met in Uttarakhand and other parts of India, in New York and in Rome for sharing your knowledge and understanding of the world. For fighting the good fight, and for keeping on fighting it as the seasons change. “We don’t always fight to win, sometimes we fight to lose.” to the leaders, visionaries, field workers, speakers, scholars, social workers, scientists, officials, facilitators, historians, journalists, entrepreneurs and environmentalists who shaped what this project became. to those people in India who, through their work, writing and guidance, helped me to recognize this project’s many complexities; included are people known to me as Heera Devi, Nirmila Devi, Vijay Jhardhari and family, Biju Negi, Sarala Devi, Dr. Suman Sahai, Dr. Vinod Bhatt, Rukmini Didi, Deepa, Harish, Komal, Dr. Bhag Mal, Dr. Shekhar Pathak, Dr. John Leavitt, Santosh and Amrita, Dr. Sood, Dr. Bhatt and Dr. Bisht, Dr. Tyagi, Dr. Kalyani, Baskar Reddy, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Dr. Peter Kenmore, Avtar Singh Negi and family, Tulsi Negi and family, Champa Devi, Pooja, Pooja, Radha Devi, Laxshman Negi, Prabha Bartwal, Debabrat Patra, Dr. Renu Thakur, Dr. Ravi Chopra, Dr. Anil Joshi, Raghu Tewari, Mahendra Kunwar, Raju Negi, Dr. Vivek Kumar, Mahesh Donya, Ajay Mahajan, Dr. Prem Mathur, Champa Devi, vii Heemansee, Neema Devi, Kashti Devi, Saraswati Devi, Basanti Devi and others from Lakshmi Ashram and many more. to Chirag, the organization, and Chirag, the person, for helping me find home and community. In particular, thanks to Keith Goyden, as well as Ganga, Ashish, Sanjay, Maya, Vicky, Nandan and Neetu. to family in India who hosted me during fieldwork, nourishing me with food to eat and food for thought – especially Ganesh “bhai,” Chhaya, Varadu Periappa, Mallika Periamma, Suresh “bhai,” Nandini, Aarthi and Guru. to the writers cited and not cited in my bibliography, for giving me bones, claws, joints, muscle, breath, vision and teeth. to the jeep and bus drivers, the train conductors, the pilots and the unseen people who got me safely from place to place. And the sweets makers and sellers along the way. to my adviser Vincent Crapanzano. You kept me "honest," or attuned to what rings true, as an ethnographer and a writer. At the same time, you cultivated my sense of freedom to think and imagine. to my dissertation committee members, Marc Edelman, Kandice Chuh and Kate Crehan, and my external reader Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan. In different ways, each of you challenged me, connected my work to broader conversations and fostered my intellectual creativity. to other mentors and advocates, first and foremost David Harvey, who always showed up and in red, asking, “What’s the politics of this?” Also: Donald Robotham, Rupal Oza, Gary Wilder, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Vijay Prashad, Vinay Gidwani, Julie Skurski and Louise Lennihan. to the National Science Foundation Division of Behavioral Cognitive Sciences (BCS) for funding this doctoral dissertation study and making possible its multi-sited methodology.
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