Meanings of Water-Land Management and Sustainability: An Indigenous Perspective on Laitu Khyeng Indigenous Community, Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh

• In Event: Environmental Challenges in South and Southeast Asia: Conflict, Cooperation and Exploitation

Abstract

We (researcher and four co-researcher participants, Elders, and knowledge-holders) were interested in exploring how identity and meanings of sustainability were framed in relation to the politics of management. Combining theory from political ecology, postcolonial theory, and science studies, especially the work of Ingold, Deleuze, Bhabha, Said, Latour, Whatmore, Haraway, and Levi-Strauss (Bhabha, 1985; Deleuze, 2004; Ingold, 2011; Haraway, 1991, 1998; Latour, 2004; Levi-Strauss, 1966; Whatmore, 2002), we have examined two main questions. First, how did Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh, view sustainability in relation to their own knowledge about the meanings of land and management? Second, how were governmental and transnational policies constructed within the contested social and ecological landscapes of the CHT? Our research addressed questions using interdisciplinary approaches for understanding sustainability in relation to conceptions and practices of land management, and asking how those of us who invoked this term might most effectively address Indigenous ecological, economic, and social challenges. In accordance with research questions specified above, this study guided by the critical concerns of identifying the problems of existing forest/land management in relation to the everyday land-based practices and traditional experiences in Indigenous regions. This study followed a relational research framing with a focus on the researcher’s relational accountability and obligations to study participants and site. Four methods of data collection were used, including traditional sharing circles, individual stories, commonplace book and photovoice. This study situated itself within this context and took a significant step in exploring identity and justice in relation to Indigenous understandings of sustainability and land-water management.

Author

• Ranjan Kumar Datta, University of Saskatchewan