Journal | Lagoonscapes
Monographic journal issue | 1 | 2 | 2021
Research Article | Mining in a Sacred Landscape: Adivasis, Deities and Alliances in a Former Princely State in Odisha/India
Mining in a Sacred Landscape: Adivasis, Deities and Alliances in a Former Princely State in Odisha/India
Abstract
The papers explores ideas of a sacred landscape inhabited by indigenous people as well as other communities, deities as well as other beings manifested in localities and ‘objects’ forming various relationships, alliances and a thick web of relationality in a former kingdom in central-eastern India. It introduces these historically evolved ties through the foundational narratives as well as contemporary rituals, while the area is undergoing major transformations after Indian independence and even more so in a phase of accelerated industrialisation, especially tied to a mining boom and sponge iron factories. The latter not only threatens to uproot an existing, though changing sacrificial polity around local deities, but it also has massive ecological consequences and leads to partially successful protests.
Submitted: Oct. 3, 2021 | Accepted: Oct. 27, 2021 | Published Dec. 20, 2021 | Language: en
Keywords Odisha • Mining • Goddess • Adivasi • Sacred landscape
Copyright © 2021 Uwe Skoda. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP//2021/02/005
