Since the beginning of the 1990s, Chilika Lake, situated on the coast of the Indian state of Orissa, has been the scene of a conflict over intensive aquaculture practices, culminating in a process of de facto privatization of the lake. This conflict can be divided into two distinct phases that have seen the involvement from village to state level of different actors: in particular the traditional fishing people and the dominant classes in Orissa. This article analyzes the socio-economic dynamics governing the conflict.The specific aim is to investigate the dynamics of class reproduction, new forms of class oppression and the emergence of new forms of class consciousness related to the transformations caused by the new aquaculture practices.The role of class in India today is discussed and related to a fieldwork-based analysis of the two phases of this movement against intensive aquaculture. I am grateful to Jens Lerche, who helped develop the argument with valuable questions and suggestions, and also to Alfredo Saad-Filho for helpful comments and suggestions. I also thank Manoranjan Mohanty, Birendra Nayak, Sakti Padhi and Michelguglielmo Torri for their useful advice at an early stage, and for their helpful comments. Furthermore I gratefully acknowledge the importance of the comments and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers. the fieldwork was centred mainly on the Puri and the Balugaon areas of the lake (see Map 1). Forty-seven interviews were conducted with traditional fishing people, village leaders, representatives of local NGOs, human rights activists, researchers and academics, local politicians, journalists, state officers and fish/prawn exporters. Published and unpublished reports and articles investigating the socio-economic conditions of the region and the issue of aquaculture were also collated and studied.Neoliberal Wave Rocks Chilika Lake, India 485
In the early 1990s Chilika Lake saw a conflict over aquaculture practices that culminated in a process of de facto privatization of the lake waters and the implementation of illegal shrimp cultivation. An earlier article explored the class dynamics of the conflict and the present paper, based on a 2015 fieldwork revisit, reviews the unfolding of the socioeconomic dynamics underlying the illegal aquaculture activities. Looking at recent developments in the implementation of illegal shrimp cultivation in the lake, it interrogates the underlying balance between coercion and consent, and the implications for the livelihoods and protest politics of the fishing people. The paper draws attention to the reality of occupational displacement, analysing its implications for the viability of the fisher people's oppositional movement. Through doing so, it draws renewed attention to the complexity of state–society relations underlying the dynamics that govern conflict and critically contributes to recent debates on subaltern politics.
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