Mining, Precarity, and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups: A Case of Paudi Bhuyan Residing in Kurmitar Iron Ore Mines of Odisha, India

Abstract

Mining enclaves inhabited by Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in Odisha display the dynamic of exclusionary development that creates spaces of relentless accumulation alongside precarity. There is a need to make sense of the mineral-based development strategy, which is constituted by and constitutive of spatialisation of tribal precarity. It is also essential to examine how the mining-affected PVTGs exercise the agency to deal with precarity. Extant Indian literature does not specify how spatialisation of precarity takes shape through mining industrialisation for PVTGs. Based on the case study of the mining-affected Paudi Bhuyan residing in the Kurmitar iron ore mines of Odisha and utilising ethnographic data, the study seeks to capture the intersectionality between mining, precarity, and PVTG agency. Mining companies encroach upon the territories of PVTGs, disrupting their traditional livelihoods, yet exhibit minimal effort to integrate them into the mining industry. In contrast, when the Paudi Bhuyan community collectively demand employment from the mining authorities, their efforts are met with state repression, manifested through police intervention aimed at silencing their demands. Mining industrialisation has aggravated the development and democratic challenges faced by PVTG. The study will open up alternative ways of thinking about the effects of mining industrialisation; the ways in which PVTGs experience precarity and exercise agency to counter it. PVTG’s experiences and responses to mining industrialisation reveal a much more complex and ambiguous picture than those more commonly painted in the literature.