Peer-reviewed Publications by Adam Jadhav
Sustainability of Indian seas has been submerged almost entirely within a national Blue Economy d... more Sustainability of Indian seas has been submerged almost entirely within a national Blue Economy discourse and politicized ambitions of limitless wealth beneath the waves. In this imaginary, shipping, fisheries, marine minerals, naval might, coastal commons, and even tourism serve to bolster national development in various ways. Such expansionary and even imperial aims, however, conjure doubts about India's engagement with international development policy and commitments to economic, social, and ecological sustainability. In this political economic context, this chapter interrogates India's performance at achieving the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and specifically Goal 14: "Life Below Water." First, I historicize sustainable development in order to unsettle a concept frequently deployed as though self-explanatory, uncontested, or ahistorical. I also briefly review the SDGs and their evolution into discursive objects and exemplars of development's fetishization of quantification. The analysis then turns to the specifics of India's performance of the SDG process which I argue produces an abstracted, flexible notion of sustainability made available for other projects, namely, the Hindutva-infused Blue Economy agenda. Contra this development imaginary, I present evidence of actually existing unsustainability at the scale of an estuary on India's southwestern coast. The chapter concludes with a provocation: India's oceanic agenda-underwritten by its performative embrace of "sustainable" developmentappears in the process of articulating both ethnonationalism and neoliberalism into a neoimperial dream.
Journal of Rural Studies, 2020
Highlights
• Discursive geographic divides inhibit shared politics across country and city chasms... more Highlights
• Discursive geographic divides inhibit shared politics across country and city chasms.
• Agrarian histories and unspoken whiteness hide the color line in the Midwest.
• Trump-style ethnonationalism is an unstable articulation of stories and experience.
• Rural precarity rarely understood as connected to broader processes of capitalism.
• Sympathetic geographic scholarship can help dis- and re-articulate rural stories.
The paradigm of ecosystem services (ES) and the methods of monetary valuation have become boundar... more The paradigm of ecosystem services (ES) and the methods of monetary valuation have become boundary objects, spanning disciplines and earning particular purchase in policy circles. However, the notion of ES and ES valuation have also been subjected to multiple critiques, ranging from their varying precision to the potential for neoliberalization of nature. This paper does not attempt to refute such critiques but rather revisits the potentials of the ES paradigm and the specific method of benefit transfer valuation for their utility as a form of environmental politics and sustainability practice. We find they have particular relevance in contexts where " data " are not readily available or are not legible to policy makers as well as where the imperative of " development " remains ideological. We argue for ES assessment and, specifically, rapid ES valuation as a first-pass tactic to inform evaluation of potentially environmentally degrading projects or environmental management. We demonstrate this using a simple benefit transfer analysis to offer an initial evaluation of (wet) landscape ES in a lightly touched estuary in Karnataka, India, where a state-backed proposal to develop an industrial shipping port is gathering steam. While we recognize and do not categorically reject critiques of the ES paradigm, we nonetheless argue for valuation as a starting point for politics that highlight and make visible ES benefits and users implicated by " development " and other kinds of environmental change.
Social Wellbeing and the Values of Small-scale Fisheries, 2017
Indian marine fishers and fishing practices vary considerably, from semi-industrial boats crewed ... more Indian marine fishers and fishing practices vary considerably, from semi-industrial boats crewed by two-dozen to the lone fisher paddling a tiny canoe. It is difficult to capture this in simple statistical measurements, leaving much of the small-scale sector as less-than-legible. Policymakers often default to defining fishers – and particularly the small-scale – in the aggregate as locked in poverty and part of the underdeveloped “backward classes.” This view results in development focused on capitalizing and “modernizing.” This paper seeks to challenge this reductionist perspective. Following a discussion of the difficulty in defining small-scale fisheries (SSF), the paper reviews of the Indian fisheries development context. Analysis of census data from India’s Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute examines the questionable but widespread generalization that Indian SSF are synonymous with poverty. The analysis finds considerable variability in the characteristics of fishing communities and the predictors of poverty within and across geographies. Inspired by the social wellbeing framework, the paper finally attempts to describe India’s small-scale fisheries in terms beyond simplistic techno-economic measures. This more nuanced statistical picture of India’s fisheries questions the narrative that SSF are inherently destitute and leads to an argument that politics, policy and scholarship should shun overly simplified economic abstractions and reconsider the diversity and values of SSF.
The Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines: Global Implementation, 2017
In India, fisheries governance suffers from weak regulation and poor compliance, with a primary e... more In India, fisheries governance suffers from weak regulation and poor compliance, with a primary exception – a collection of coastal seasonal fishing bans or closures. Much other fisheries policy (e.g., fuel subsidies or incentives for deep-sea fishing) promotes increasing production over conservation. The benefits of such measures have generally accrued to owners of industrial and semi-industrial operations , often at the expense of the small-scale fisheries sector. Viewed critically, Indian fisheries governance can be described as out of compliance with the FAO's new Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (the SSF Guidelines). In this chapter, we analyze the coastal seasonal fishing bans in light of the SSF Guidelines and, in particular, the provisions for sustainable resource management (Section 5b of the Guidelines). Details of the monsoon bans have varied by time and place, but a diverse group of stakeholders have generally accepted the principle of a seasonal ban. However, there remains a complicated history of policy, legal, and social contestations – in short, politics – around the particulars of the bans, which we review. We also consider the specific case of Karnataka state. We find that weak scientific arguments generate a contested ecological justification and reduced support for seasonal closures. We suggest the monsoon bans are better justified when framed as safeguards for the small-scale fisheries sector. The SSF Guidelines provide a normative foundation for strengthening the monsoon fishing bans as part of dynamic fisheries management to privilege and protect India's small-scale fisher communities.
Journal of International Service, Jan 2013
This paper proceeds in four parts. First, it attempts to lay out some basic
history and context t... more This paper proceeds in four parts. First, it attempts to lay out some basic
history and context to set the stage for India’s free-trade regime. Part I
provides a snapshot of the present and a flashback to a pre-liberalization era.
Second, in Part II, the paper examines the broad trends in India’s trade
policy since liberalization with some specific details of note. The period
under examination here is from 1991 until roughly mid-2012. Third, the
paper attempts to define sustainability in broader terms than economics
alone. Part III lays out a more holistic accounting of sustainable development
and examines the implications of India’s trade policy. Finally, in Part IV, the
paper attempts to look forward and argue for some basic reforms and
proposals that might improve the prospects for sustainable development in
India. This final part also critically examines what is missing in this analysis
and proposes some areas for future research.
Reports / Policy Papers by Adam Jadhav
This paper reviews the existent, nascent or evolving justifications and govern regimes for ocean ... more This paper reviews the existent, nascent or evolving justifications and govern regimes for ocean mineral extraction by Indian players (public and private) within the Indian EEZ and beyond. Commissioned by the Dakshin Foundation, Bangalore.
The need to protect and sustainably manage the oceans is urgent. At the Rio+20 global summit on s... more The need to protect and sustainably manage the oceans is urgent. At the Rio+20 global summit on sustainable development, which took place in June 2012, the international community pledged to redouble efforts for conservation and restoration of the seas. India now has the opportunity to show the world its own commitment to ocean protection when it hosts the 2012 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Hyderabad. With dire threats facing the oceans, now is the time for India to act to meet its marine conservation commitments and show real leadership.
This report examines the state of knowledge of ecological and biological aspects of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the more than two million square kilometers of ocean for which India has economic rights and environmental responsibilities. The report contains a series of maps that plot publicly available data on measures of ocean chemistry, biodiversity, human impact and more. This report therefore provides the essential information intended to stimulate a debate as to which key areas warrant protection as marine reserves and what broader management strategies are required to adequately conserve India’s valuable biodiversity and natural resources.
Sound science and spatial data are necessary for the designation of protected areas and the design of oceans management. India can be thankful for its numerous
institutions that collect data on fisheries management, oceanography and marine ecology. Yet there are significant gaps in their research, and institutional barriers to their collaboration exist. The data presented are only a starting point.
Taken as a whole, the maps contained in this report suggest a number of important areas within the Indian EEZ that deserve attention for their biological or ecological significance: the Gulfs of Kachchh, Khambat and Mannar; Palk Bay and waters off the Sundarbans; large fishing grounds such as the Wadge Bank and small biodiverse areas such as Angria Bank; potentially unique seamount ecosystems in the Laccadive Sea; and possible migration paths of already protected marine mammals and sea turtles beyond the continental shelf.
The maps also point to the need for more nuanced, spatial and temporal regulations that recognize changing biological and oceanic phenomena such as upwellings, seasonal chemical variations and large, dynamic fisheries. At the same time, more spatially explicit data are needed to understand how the populations of many marine species and ecosystems are changing. Finally, human impact on our critical ecosystems deserves serious study.
As this report outlines, India has a great opportunity to make a serious commitment to protecting its wealth of biodiversity and resources before they are wiped out by unsustainable use. To do this, high-level policy makers — including those within the ministries of Environment and Forests, Agriculture and Earth Sciences, as well as the Planning Commission itself — must work in earnest to collect the science necessary to enable the effective conservation of India’s precious marine environment. With the necessary scientific information in hand, they must then consult with communities, civil society and industry to ensure that effective but equitable measures are put in place.
The oceans need protecting. Across the world, ocean ecosystems are reaching tipping points and fisheries are collapsing; India has an opportunity to safeguard its oceans before it is too late. The upcoming CBD conference provides an excellent opportunity for India to make clear its intentions to commence a comprehensive process to identify and protect key areas within its own EEZ.
Conference Papers by Adam Jadhav
This paper / presentation analyzes examples of development in and around the Aghanashini River es... more This paper / presentation analyzes examples of development in and around the Aghanashini River estuary, a biodiverse wetland region on the coast of state of Karnataka. Using the lens of legal pluralism, the paper critiques a case classical neoliberal development — a proposed industrial port — that would significantly alter the marine commons. But the legal plural perspective also unveils the ways in which other so-called alternative forms of development still adhere to neoliberal tenets of privatization of common resources and creation of class power.
The international community has enshrined formal education as one of the key tools necessary to a... more The international community has enshrined formal education as one of the key tools necessary to alleviate poverty, on par with ending hunger and fighting disease. In addition, education is often considered a key component of the -modern‖ geographic, demographic and economic transition off the land, out of the village and into wage jobs in cities. But what does education mean within the rural or traditional economy? What does education mean for the legions of villagers who remain poor farmers and fishers in developing countries such as India? This paper examines the relationship between education and poverty both theoretically and empirically in traditional economic sectors. First, the paper sketches a brief outline of neoclassical economic growth theory, with specific attention to the basic Cobb-Douglas production function. Next, the paper reviews literature on the economic returns to education or human capital, with special attention to traditional sectors when possible. Finally, the paper conducts a quantitative analysis of marine fishery census data from India, testing the empirical relationship between poverty and education within a traditional sector. The paper ultimately finds evidence to support the idea of returns to education even within India's coastal fishery economies; in other words, education need not simply be a ticket out of the village. In line with much development literature, female education may have an inverse relationship to poverty stronger than male education. Furthermore, the effect of education can rival that of mechanized capital, often thought to be the key to improving poverty among fishers. However, the results may be attenuated both by the structure of the economy as well as socio-political institutions. Finally, the findings have a spatial quality to them. Some relationships shift when controlling for the fixed or unobserved effects of place, and the effects of education are not uniform across geographies. Taken together, these findings suggest the need for education that is locally tailored, decentralized and relevant specifically for traditional economies.
Examination of the Aghanashini River estuary from a local social/political economy perspective un... more Examination of the Aghanashini River estuary from a local social/political economy perspective unveils numerous "optics" on the estuary, highlights potentially worrisome development trends and problematizes an uncertain policy/rule context. This ultimately leads to call for robust (and critically reviewed) economic and ecological valuation study of the estuary (both from non-monteary and monetary perspectives).
Note: This builds on my previous work in and around the estuary.
Other by Adam Jadhav
A call for contributions of images and short essays highlighting the variation of fishing people,... more A call for contributions of images and short essays highlighting the variation of fishing people, places, practices and traditions.
The Bastion, 2020
The media described the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana as an ostensible “stimulus” package ... more The media described the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana as an ostensible “stimulus” package to address the COVID-19 crisis, which has devastated Indian fisheries. Yet, the framework’s expansionary ambitions—couched in buzzwords and jargon—also dovetail with a cryptic attempt to enact the pro-growth National Fisheries Policy 2020, while robust civil society participation is curtailed by the lockdown. Adam Jadhav explores the PM-MSY in terms of its far-reaching political and economic goals in the latest instalment of 'The Shore Scene', produced in collaboration with Dakshin Foundation.
https://thebastion.co.in/covid-19/the-shore-scene-pm-msys-fisheries-development-promises-anything-but-sabka-vikas/
Papers by Adam Jadhav
Sustainable development goals series, 2023
MARE publication series, Aug 11, 2017
Indian marine fishers and fishing practices vary considerably, from semi-industrial boats crewed ... more Indian marine fishers and fishing practices vary considerably, from semi-industrial boats crewed by two-dozen to the lone fisher paddling a tiny canoe. It is difficult to capture this in simple statistical measurements, leaving much of the small-scale sector as less-than-legible. Policymakers often default to defining fishers – and particularly the small-scale – in the aggregate as locked in poverty and part of the underdeveloped “backward classes.” This view results in development focused on capitalizing and “modernizing.” This paper seeks to challenge this reductionist perspective. Following a discussion of the difficulty in defining small-scale fisheries (SSF), the paper reviews of the Indian fisheries development context. Analysis of census data from India’s Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute examines the questionable but widespread generalization that Indian SSF are synonymous with poverty. The analysis finds considerable variability in the characteristics of fishing communities and the predictors of poverty within and across geographies. Inspired by the social wellbeing framework, the paper finally attempts to describe India’s small-scale fisheries in terms beyond simplistic techno-economic measures. This more nuanced statistical picture of India’s fisheries questions the narrative that SSF are inherently destitute and leads to an argument that politics, policy and scholarship should shun overly simplified economic abstractions and reconsider the diversity and values of SSF.
The Journal of Peasant Studies, May 30, 2022
Journal of Rural Studies, Feb 1, 2021
American manufacturing continues its long death spiral. Development policy favors burgeoning, urb... more American manufacturing continues its long death spiral. Development policy favors burgeoning, urban, creative classes. A racist, misogynist, Christian and/or heteronormative political class lashes out against the perceived gains of women and minorities. The Democratic Party now privileges urban elites with presumed intellectual superiority. These narratives would be but a few on an over-long list of common diagnoses of a tide of alleged populism across rural America. While these claims may have purchase, they also require urgent interrogation, as many contribute to an Othering discourse that renders the country as backwards, hick, redneck, uneducated or mystified by religion. In this context of toxic and divisive politics, this paper looks for ways to scale what can be understood as a political "empathy wall" (Hochschild 2016). Building upon literatures including rural sociology and political science, this paper details a mixed methods project that began in a quasi-autobiographical fashion: semi-structured and unstructured interviews by a left-progressive researcher among classmates, teachers, churchgoers, farmers and others in his rural Midwestern hometown. This personalized micro-case study is then read through and against multi-decade trends observed in U.S. census and voter data for rural Midwestern counties. These data are complemented by a remote sensing analysis of land use and cropland obtained from 20 years of Landsat imagery. What emerges is a multi-layered story of farming communities where agrarian and neoliberal political economic change (and a lack thereof) have contributed to a kind of "desiccation" in the supposed heartland. This research explicitly looks for what Scoones et al. (2017) have described as emancipatory rural politics. In doing so, this research complicates stark narratives of populism and finds underlying politics and worries in the country that may have resonance in the city. And vice versa.
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Peer-reviewed Publications by Adam Jadhav
• Discursive geographic divides inhibit shared politics across country and city chasms.
• Agrarian histories and unspoken whiteness hide the color line in the Midwest.
• Trump-style ethnonationalism is an unstable articulation of stories and experience.
• Rural precarity rarely understood as connected to broader processes of capitalism.
• Sympathetic geographic scholarship can help dis- and re-articulate rural stories.
history and context to set the stage for India’s free-trade regime. Part I
provides a snapshot of the present and a flashback to a pre-liberalization era.
Second, in Part II, the paper examines the broad trends in India’s trade
policy since liberalization with some specific details of note. The period
under examination here is from 1991 until roughly mid-2012. Third, the
paper attempts to define sustainability in broader terms than economics
alone. Part III lays out a more holistic accounting of sustainable development
and examines the implications of India’s trade policy. Finally, in Part IV, the
paper attempts to look forward and argue for some basic reforms and
proposals that might improve the prospects for sustainable development in
India. This final part also critically examines what is missing in this analysis
and proposes some areas for future research.
Reports / Policy Papers by Adam Jadhav
This report examines the state of knowledge of ecological and biological aspects of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the more than two million square kilometers of ocean for which India has economic rights and environmental responsibilities. The report contains a series of maps that plot publicly available data on measures of ocean chemistry, biodiversity, human impact and more. This report therefore provides the essential information intended to stimulate a debate as to which key areas warrant protection as marine reserves and what broader management strategies are required to adequately conserve India’s valuable biodiversity and natural resources.
Sound science and spatial data are necessary for the designation of protected areas and the design of oceans management. India can be thankful for its numerous
institutions that collect data on fisheries management, oceanography and marine ecology. Yet there are significant gaps in their research, and institutional barriers to their collaboration exist. The data presented are only a starting point.
Taken as a whole, the maps contained in this report suggest a number of important areas within the Indian EEZ that deserve attention for their biological or ecological significance: the Gulfs of Kachchh, Khambat and Mannar; Palk Bay and waters off the Sundarbans; large fishing grounds such as the Wadge Bank and small biodiverse areas such as Angria Bank; potentially unique seamount ecosystems in the Laccadive Sea; and possible migration paths of already protected marine mammals and sea turtles beyond the continental shelf.
The maps also point to the need for more nuanced, spatial and temporal regulations that recognize changing biological and oceanic phenomena such as upwellings, seasonal chemical variations and large, dynamic fisheries. At the same time, more spatially explicit data are needed to understand how the populations of many marine species and ecosystems are changing. Finally, human impact on our critical ecosystems deserves serious study.
As this report outlines, India has a great opportunity to make a serious commitment to protecting its wealth of biodiversity and resources before they are wiped out by unsustainable use. To do this, high-level policy makers — including those within the ministries of Environment and Forests, Agriculture and Earth Sciences, as well as the Planning Commission itself — must work in earnest to collect the science necessary to enable the effective conservation of India’s precious marine environment. With the necessary scientific information in hand, they must then consult with communities, civil society and industry to ensure that effective but equitable measures are put in place.
The oceans need protecting. Across the world, ocean ecosystems are reaching tipping points and fisheries are collapsing; India has an opportunity to safeguard its oceans before it is too late. The upcoming CBD conference provides an excellent opportunity for India to make clear its intentions to commence a comprehensive process to identify and protect key areas within its own EEZ.
Conference Papers by Adam Jadhav
Note: This builds on my previous work in and around the estuary.
Other by Adam Jadhav
https://thebastion.co.in/covid-19/the-shore-scene-pm-msys-fisheries-development-promises-anything-but-sabka-vikas/
Papers by Adam Jadhav
• Discursive geographic divides inhibit shared politics across country and city chasms.
• Agrarian histories and unspoken whiteness hide the color line in the Midwest.
• Trump-style ethnonationalism is an unstable articulation of stories and experience.
• Rural precarity rarely understood as connected to broader processes of capitalism.
• Sympathetic geographic scholarship can help dis- and re-articulate rural stories.
history and context to set the stage for India’s free-trade regime. Part I
provides a snapshot of the present and a flashback to a pre-liberalization era.
Second, in Part II, the paper examines the broad trends in India’s trade
policy since liberalization with some specific details of note. The period
under examination here is from 1991 until roughly mid-2012. Third, the
paper attempts to define sustainability in broader terms than economics
alone. Part III lays out a more holistic accounting of sustainable development
and examines the implications of India’s trade policy. Finally, in Part IV, the
paper attempts to look forward and argue for some basic reforms and
proposals that might improve the prospects for sustainable development in
India. This final part also critically examines what is missing in this analysis
and proposes some areas for future research.
This report examines the state of knowledge of ecological and biological aspects of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the more than two million square kilometers of ocean for which India has economic rights and environmental responsibilities. The report contains a series of maps that plot publicly available data on measures of ocean chemistry, biodiversity, human impact and more. This report therefore provides the essential information intended to stimulate a debate as to which key areas warrant protection as marine reserves and what broader management strategies are required to adequately conserve India’s valuable biodiversity and natural resources.
Sound science and spatial data are necessary for the designation of protected areas and the design of oceans management. India can be thankful for its numerous
institutions that collect data on fisheries management, oceanography and marine ecology. Yet there are significant gaps in their research, and institutional barriers to their collaboration exist. The data presented are only a starting point.
Taken as a whole, the maps contained in this report suggest a number of important areas within the Indian EEZ that deserve attention for their biological or ecological significance: the Gulfs of Kachchh, Khambat and Mannar; Palk Bay and waters off the Sundarbans; large fishing grounds such as the Wadge Bank and small biodiverse areas such as Angria Bank; potentially unique seamount ecosystems in the Laccadive Sea; and possible migration paths of already protected marine mammals and sea turtles beyond the continental shelf.
The maps also point to the need for more nuanced, spatial and temporal regulations that recognize changing biological and oceanic phenomena such as upwellings, seasonal chemical variations and large, dynamic fisheries. At the same time, more spatially explicit data are needed to understand how the populations of many marine species and ecosystems are changing. Finally, human impact on our critical ecosystems deserves serious study.
As this report outlines, India has a great opportunity to make a serious commitment to protecting its wealth of biodiversity and resources before they are wiped out by unsustainable use. To do this, high-level policy makers — including those within the ministries of Environment and Forests, Agriculture and Earth Sciences, as well as the Planning Commission itself — must work in earnest to collect the science necessary to enable the effective conservation of India’s precious marine environment. With the necessary scientific information in hand, they must then consult with communities, civil society and industry to ensure that effective but equitable measures are put in place.
The oceans need protecting. Across the world, ocean ecosystems are reaching tipping points and fisheries are collapsing; India has an opportunity to safeguard its oceans before it is too late. The upcoming CBD conference provides an excellent opportunity for India to make clear its intentions to commence a comprehensive process to identify and protect key areas within its own EEZ.
Note: This builds on my previous work in and around the estuary.
https://thebastion.co.in/covid-19/the-shore-scene-pm-msys-fisheries-development-promises-anything-but-sabka-vikas/