Lost Landscapes and Stolen Times: Dispossession, Indigeneity, and Extr-'activism' in the Mining Tracts in Odisha, India

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates how Indigenous epistemologies fundamentally reconceptualise the framing of injustice and collective action in anti-mining resistance. Drawing on multisited ethnographic research conducted in Odisha, Eastern India, this study reveals how framing in movements challenges dominant assumptions in Western theories of natural resource conflict. Through this research, I contribute to social movement theory, Indigenous methodologies, and the mining-resistance literature in general, and within the particular context of India. At the heart of this research is the conceptualisation of jal (water), jangle (forest), jameen (land) as a master frame that operates simultaneously across material, spiritual, and temporal domains. To further this discussion, I build upon the analytical conceptualisation of Indigenous indigeneity, claimed indigeneity, and ascribed indigeneity, and extend it to social movement theory, and, in particular, to framing theory, by illustrating how Indigenous actors strategically navigate overlapping identities to assert multidimensional justice claims. This thesis shows that extractive disruption leads to the temporal dispossession and systematic erosion of Indigenous communities' capacity to envision and sustain intergenerational futures. The thesis, therefore, also contributes to critiques of post-material assumptions in 'New' social movement theory by showing that Indigenous resistance integrates both material survival and cultural continuity. Within this framework, injustice is not a fixed category but rather a contested, evolving concept shaped by intersectional identities and situated lifeworlds. Writing from my positionality as a Santal Indigenous scholar, I employ a decolonising ethnographic methodology grounded in the principles of respect, reciprocity, relevance, and reverence. By combining talking circles and conversational methods with traditional Western ethnographic tools, this thesis shows how Indigenous research paradigms can generate theoretical insights while advancing the knowledge-making process. Empirically, the findings in this thesis indicate that Indigenous resistance is both temporally dynamic and contextually adaptive. In Koraput, communities mobilise through grassroots organisations such as Maliparbat Surakhya Samiti (MPSS), framing their claims through sacred, procedural, recognition, and distributive narratives against bauxite extraction. Conversely, in Keonjhar, with a longer history of iron ore mining, communities have shifted towards negotiated benefit-sharing and procedural claims. These patterns underscore how Indigenous in/justice framing is recalibrated over time in response to shifting threats, opportunities, and governance structures. A feminist political ecology (FPE) lens further reveals how Indigenous women articulate injustice by prioritising intergenerational responsibilities and relational ethics. FPE perspective challenges masculinist assumptions in resistance narratives and the essentialist framing of women's environmental roles. Furthermore, I propose moolnivasi as an emergent hybrid category of indigeneity that fosters solidarities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups through shared experiences of temporal dispossession, thereby expanding understandings of political alliance building while affirming cultural specificity. Situated at the intersection of anthropology of development and public policy, this thesis demonstrates that contemporary Indigenous Peoples' movements cannot be fully understood without considering the simultaneity of cultural preservation and political mobilisation, the strategic fluidity of indigeneity, and the entanglement of local ontologies with legal-constitutional structures. Show more