In the Belly of the River: Tribal Conflicts over Development in the Narmada Valley

Taking as a case study the opposition of the Bhilala tribe in western India to the Sardar Sarovar dam that would displace them, Baniskar (U. of California-Berkeley) asks whether the lived reality of tribal people today allows the formulation of a critique of development, what the tribal relationship with nature is today, and how people whose struggles are the subject of theories of liberation and social change perceive their own situation. The study began as her dissertation for Cornell Universi…