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What does the analytic of caste bring to political ecology, and vice versa? And what does it mean to practice an anti-caste political ecology? Inspired by calls to recognize the working of caste within and outside South Asia from Dalit and Bahujan activists, and building on conversations in the fields of critical caste studies, political ecology, and urban geography, this panel considers how caste as an organizing mode of socio-spatial injustice pushes us to rethink and broaden our understanding of environmental inequalities and struggles. Anti-caste scholars and Dalit revolutionaries from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1936) and Jotirao Phule (1873) to Gail Omvedt (1994), Gopal Guru (2012), Anand Teltumbde (2018) and others clearly recognized and articulated the inseparability of labor exploitation, spatial segregation, and ecological exclusion, and its centrality to caste violence. Recent scholarship has highlighted the operation and effects of 'environmental casteism' (Lee 2017) and 'eco-casteism' (Sharma 2017), showing how pollution and toxicity hamper the life-chances of Dalit communities but also how dominant environmentalisms are premised on and perpetuate caste supremacy. At the same time, rich traditions of Dalit literature, folklore, and testimonies emphasize Dalit ecological visions and mobilizations that counter Brahminical views of nature and showcase Dalit environmental knowledge and expertise (eg. Bama 2012, Kamble 2009, Valmiki 1997). Nonetheless, caste remains relatively undertheorized and often invisibilized within mainstream environmental studies (Aiyadurai and Ingole 2021).


Central to the task of building anti-caste political ecologies is therefore rethinking existing analytical frameworks for studying unequal socioecological relations in South Asia and beyond (Chairez-Garza et al. 2022) as well as moving beyond liberal framings of rights and justice that limit the potential for anti-caste, anti-racist, anti-colonial and abolitionist futures (Ranganathan 2022, Heynen and Ybarra 2021).


Our panel centers anti-caste thought in their analysis of environmental questions; reconsider the 'environmental' through the lens of caste; examine how uneven geographies of caste, class, race, religion, and gender relate to struggles for environmental justice; and explore anti-caste spatial imaginaries and environmental futures.

Non-Presenting Participants