Sacred groves or sacred natural sites (SNS) are defined areas of land and bodies of water with considerable socio-cultural and ecological value. This study attempts to analyse SNS using the framework of commons or common-pool resources and understand the implications regarding the access to and ecological sustainability of these sacred spaces. A set of ten groves from an inventory of sacred groves reported by the Institute of Foresters Kerala were chosen using purposive sampling to cover various types of custodianship and communities in the district of Thrissur. This district houses the most famous sacred grove in Kerala and is known for consecrating sacred groves and expunging spirits. A field survey employing an observation schedule and semi-structured interviews were undertaken focusing on the biophysical, socio-cultural, and institutional aspects of the SNS. Understanding the relationship between grove ecosystems and stakeholder communities was the objective of the study. The management of SNS in the study sites does not show much evidence of collective action. There is a tendency of SNS to become 'club goods' over a period of time. Regardless of types of custodianship, SNS exhibit properties of common-pool resources from an ecological point of view. Even when customarily managed along caste lines, access was not physically restricted. Recent constructions of concrete boundaries around SNS, conversion of groves to temples, and increasing intensity and frequency of rituals have changed the socio-cultural and ecological character of these spaces. The study shows that the perspective of the commons is inadequate to capture the underlying power dynamics of institutions of SNS. Understanding the transformation of SNS from being 'open' and inclusive to closed and elitist temple spaces need a different language of political ecology.
This article situates the empirical context of small freshwater bodies in the theoretical debates of commons and political ecology to understand the processes of institutionalization. We argue that a "politics of empty space" operating in the policy narratives and the practices have resulted in a partial decommodification of rural waters in Kerala. The communities, especially the oppressed and the marginalized, have managed to co-produce ecological assets like rural ponds. Such efforts towards re-embedding the economy in the society could be a starting point to address the water and the larger environmental crisis that we are in today.
The recently enacted Farm Laws in India has led to widespread and vigorous protests across the country. It has been hailed as a watershed moment by the neoliberal market analysts and is compared to the 1991 economic reforms, based on the notions of liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation. A critical review of these laws and amendments needs to be situated in the larger narrative of commodification, wherein certain essential goods and services are appropriated and standardised and traded at market-determined prices. The present review intends to place these new laws in the broader policies and ‘projects’ of neoliberalisation of nature. A critical look at these laws shows that they have profound implications for social justice and environmental sustainability. It seeks to cross-question the food question and the peasant question by revisiting the ontological questions of what constitutes food and farming. It considers the new debate and the old vision of ‘food as commons’, and find that the new laws are, in fact, a continuation of attempts by neoliberal markets and states to commodify food and farming activities. Nevertheless, such attempts, for various reasons, face active resistance in the form of countermovements by the peasantry and enter the arena of political economy. The review argues that the present peasant resistance should be considered as part of the larger environmental justice movements.
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