Citizenship at Sea. Environmental Displacement and State Relations in the Indian Sundarbans

Abstract

Coastal erosions in the Sundarbans have not only dismantled infrastructure and place-based relations, but also adversely affected citizen’s abilities to make claims on the state and to translate these claims into desired outcomes, effecting a “corrosion of citizenship at the margins” which entails waning influence on bureaucratic decisions and, concomitantly, the fading of citizenship rights in practice.

Biographical Note

Dr. Arne Harms (SFB 1199 & Institute of Anthropology, Leipzig University, Germany)
Arne Harms is an anthropologist working on environment, mobility, and technology in the Global South. Currently, he is investigating carbon forestry in India. He obtained a PhD for a study of environmental displacement and resettlement in the Indian Sundarbans (Free University of Berlin, 2014). His other major research project was concerned with masculinity and ritual practice in the Caribbean state of Guyana. He has held positions in Berlin, Cologne, and Munich as well as at Nalanda University in India.