Forests, famine and communities: Towards an environmental history of eastern India

When

23/05/2018    
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Where

Chowen Lecture Theatre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Falmer, Brighton, Not in USA, BN1 9PX

Event Type

Forests, famine and communities: Towards an environmental history of eastern India

Wednesday 23 May 18:00 until 19:30
Chowen Lecture Theatre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex BN1 9PX
Speaker: Vinita Damodaran, Professor of South Asian History, School of History Art History and Philosophy
Organised by University of Sussex Part of the series: Professorial Lecture

This lecture on the impact of globalisation on the forested landscapes and indigenous oradivasi cultures of India will focus on the environmental history of Eastern India and will add greatly both to debates on the history of globalisation and the environment, and to knowledge of India’s natural heritage and its adivasi communities. This has relevance for global debates on sustainability, equity and well being. Eastern Indian adivasis currently find themselves confronting the world’s most powerful multi-national mining companies (many of them registered in Europe) in a nexus with global  political and military interests that are initiating massive but to date un-researched landscape changes. Understanding the transformative nature of these changes in the Indian context requires a detailed mapping of the environmental and climate history of India from 1800 and to document indigenous knowledge of plants and medicine in order to delineate ‘alternative ways of living and being on this planet’ with profound implications for our future in the age of the Anthropocene.

Chowen Lecture Theatre
Brighton and Sussex Medical School (teaching building)
University of Sussex
Brighton
BN1 9PX

This is a free, open lecture – everyone is welcome, but numbers are limited.

Refreshments provided.