(2023) Resisting ‘extractive capital’: a comparative study of two adivasi anti-mining movements in postcolonial (and neoliberal) India (original) (raw)

This study compares adivasi movements against two mining projects commissioned in India by Vedanta Resources, a London-based Indian mining corporation. One is the resistance of the Dongria Kondh to the bauxite mining and aluminium processing projects at Niyamgiri. The movement succeeded when the Supreme Court of India scrapped the project in 2013. The other is the movement of the Binjhal against a gold mining project at Sonakhan. The project was to be started in 2015, but intense opposition led the chief minister promise to stop it. We argue that both the movements, which had only ‘cultural resources’ available, established solidarity by mobilizing history, memory and folk imaginaries. The participation of external civil society organizations led to a resounding success across scales in the case of Niyamgiri. But the local contextualization of culture, and limited networks, constrained the success of the Sonakhan movement to the local scale. The ultimate successful outcome for both however depended on the available ‘political opportunities’ across times and scales.