Carbon Economies: Precarious Labour, Local Politics, and Inequality in the Eastern Indian Coal Belt

In the mineral-bearing tracts of eastern India, coal mining activities have for decades been concentrated in areas inhabited by indigenous communities, and brought about dispossession, displacement, and the erosion of land- and forest-based ways of life. Based on 18 months of fieldwork in a mining-affected indigenous village, my doctoral research examines the variegated ways in which mining industrialisation has affected different groups of villagers - from illegal coal peddlers to colliery employees - and its wider impact on the community as a whole. By providing an insight into the lives, livelihoods, and perspectives of people engulfed by mining operations, the research challenges common assumptions on the effects of, and responses to, extractive industrialism and dispossession, and contributes to theoretical engagements with labour, inequality, and politics.

First, at variance with prominent critical theories of dispossession, the thesis shows how rather than simply the destruction of rural communities, dispossession can generate socioeconomic differentiation within them, creating new and deeper internal inequalities. By exploring these inequalities in relation to the different types of work, formal and informal, that have emerged locally as a result of mining, the research contributes to the literature on work and precarity. It illustrates how different forms of informal labour can carry different degrees of precarity and meanings for labourers - in terms of stability, autonomy, work rhythms, and gender dynamics - that inflect their present and longer-term livelihood strategies.

Second, contrary to the prevalent narrative of resistance to mining and dispossession by rural - and especially indigenous - communities, the research shows how such processes can produce not protest but participation in the economy of carbon extraction. By examining local forms of co-option and clientelism in connection with mining operations, the research contributes to our understanding of the politics of dispossession and extractive industrialism. It illuminates how political leaders and potential activists can become brokers between extractive projects and villagers, and how this can lead to shifts in everyday sociopolitical relations that act to curb rather than foster possibilities of collective action.

These insights are also crucial for debates on energy resources and ecological change. By casting light on the range of local coal-related forms of labour, and the intricacies of local politics around mining and dispossession, the research illustrates how rural indigenous livelihoods can become almost exclusively dependent on fossil fuel extraction, and their very survival bound up with precarious, environmentally-detrimental carbon-based economies.

Different chapters of the thesis form the basis for the three journal articles I will produce during the fellowship, which make specific respective theoretical contributions: to our understanding of the everyday politics of extractive industrialisation and dispossession; of precarious, informal labour; and of the temporality of inequality and precarity. The thesis as a whole forms the basis for the book proposal I will pitch to selected publishers. In addition to the impact of the articles and - at a later stage - the monograph, the project includes several other impact-oriented activities. First, presentations in selected academic conferences, which will disseminate the research within academia. Second, the workshop I will co-organise with my mentor at SOAS, which will include both scholars and activist and civil society organisations, and generate broad conversations on issues around extractive industrialism, dispossession, and politics. And third, publications in public-facing forums that will engage general audiences by tapping into timely public debates on some of the most pivotal challenges of our time: growing inequalities, carbon and energy futures, and environmental change.