Hierarchies of Earth: Caste, Indigeneity, and the Politics of Land, Life, and Ecological Futures

Hierarchies of Earth brings together speakers across anthropology, environmental humanities, political ecology, religious studies, and related fields to examine how ecological crisis unfolds within historically stratified social worlds.

The symposium explores how caste, indigeneity, displacement, extraction, and racialized or religious forms of belonging shape access to land, water, resources, and environmental knowledge. While its primary focus is South Asia, it also opens comparative space for reflection on Indigenous knowledge, environmental justice, and ecological transformation in other regions such as the Arctic and Latin America.

The programme includes panels on emerging research, land and displacement, knowledge systems in transition, extraction and environmental inequality, relational ontologies, and a concluding film session on myth, politics, and caste. Andrea Joslyn Nightingale (UiO) will deliver the keynote address, Intersectionality for Transformative Climate Action. Additional contributions will be made by Luiz Hancio Medina (Ekologos-Brazil), Fatma Matar (Ekologos-Norway), Hanna Geschewski (CMI, Bergen), Kari Telle (CMI, Bergen), Maya Sunde Singh (Norwegian Human Rights Fund), Anwesha Dutta (CMI, Bergen), Justin Michael Parks (UiT), Lill Tove Fredriksen (UiT), Deva Nandan Harikrishna (UiO), Divya Rao (Ekologos/ENCODE UiT), and Moumita Sen (MF, Oslo). Kenneth Bo Nielsen (UiO) will serve as panel chair, and Michael Heneise (Ekologos/UiT) will offer welcome and closing remarks.

The event is organized by Divya Rao and Michael Heneise within the Ekologos network, an international collaborative project linking partners in Norway, India, and Brazil through interdisciplinary work on environmental humanities, ecological knowledge, and climate futures.

Everyone is warmly welcomed to attend the symposium, no registration required.

If you would like to join the symposium lunch, please complete the sign-up form (see "Lunch Sign-Up Form" on the right) by 10 May 2026 so we can accommodate catering and dietary requirements. All welcome!

PROGRAMME

TIME	SESSION	DETAILS	PANEL NOTES and THEMES
09:00 – 09:30	Welcome & Opening Remarks	Tea/coffee 09:15–09:30 Michael Heneise	Welcome address, introduction of the chair(s), and brief remarks on The South Asianist publication prospects emerging from this symposium.
09:30 – 10:40	Panel 1: Emerging Voices & Situated Interventions Chair: Divya Rao	09:30–09:45 Luiz Hancio Medina (Ekologos-Brazil: student presentation) 09:45–10:25 Fatma Matar (Ekologos-Norway: short film presentation) Local conciliations between ecological erosion and development promises in Uttarkashi district 10:25–10:40, Discussion	This opening panel foregrounds emerging voices and grounded interventions, setting the stage through situated, practice-based, and experimental engagements with ecological and social questions. Themes: Student research; field-based insights; experimental and visual methodologies; early-stage interventions
10:40 – 10:45	Short Break
10:45 – 11:45	Panel 2: Land, Displacement, & Knowledge Systems in Transition Chair: Kenneth Bo Nielsen	10:45–11:00 Hanna Geschewski Land(ing) in exile: human-land relations among Tibetan refugees in South India 11:00–11:15 Kari Telle Tracking groundwater and indigenous hydrological know-how in uncertain times 11:15–11:30 Maya Sunde Singh Experiences from the Field: A Rights Based Approach to Caste, Class, and Marginalization in South Asia 11:30–11:45 Discussion	This panel explores how relationships to land and knowledge are reconfigured under conditions of displacement, governance shifts, and ongoing struggles over rights and belonging. Themes: Land relations in displacement; indigenous and local knowledge systems; rights, access, and marginalisation; socio-environmental change
11:45 – 12:00	Refreshments Break
12:00 – 13:00	Keynote Address	12:00–12:40 Andrea Joslyn Nightingale (with Noémi Gonda) Intersectionality for transformative climate action 12:40–13:00 Discussion	The keynote brings a critical conceptual lens to the symposium, rethinking intersectionality as a transformative framework for understanding power, subjectivity, and climate governance. Themes: Intersectionality and power; climate governance; subjectivity and justice; transformative approaches to inequality
13:00 – 14:00	Symposium Lunch
14:00 – 14:35	Panel 3: Power, Extraction, & Environmental Inequality Chair: TBC	14:00–14:15 Anwesha Dutta Labour Structures, Power, and Biodiversity Conservation: Discussions from ethnographic research in Assam, and collaborative work in the Navajo Nation 14:15–14:30 Justin Michael Parks Critiques of Extractive Modernity in African American Women’s 1970s Poetry 14:30–14:40 Discussion	This panel examines how extractive logics—material, cultural, and historical—continue to shape environmental inequality and governance across contexts. Themes: Labour and conservation; extractive modernity; environmental justice; historical and structural inequalities
14:40 – 14:45	Short Break
14:45 – 15:45	Panel 4: Relational Ontologies: Ritual, Land, & More-than-Human Worlds Chair: Kenneth Bo Nielsen	14:45–15:00 Lill Tove Fredriksen Living Relations with Meahcci 15:00–15:15 Deva Nandan Harikrishna The relational ecology of animal sacrifice, caste, and Hindu religiosities at the Kodungallur Bharani Festival 15:15–15:30 Divya Rao When Spirits Mediate: Caste, Land, and Relational Ontologies in the Ritual Courts of Būta Kola 15:30–15:45 Discussion	Shifting from structures of power to questions of ontology, this panel examines how relational worlds (across ritual, land, and more-than-human entities) reconfigure authority, ecology, and ways of knowing. Themes: Relational ontologies; ritual and cosmology; caste and ecology; more-than-human relations; alternative governance frameworks
15:45 – 16:00	Refreshments Break
16:00 – 17:30	Panel 5: Myth, Politics & Counter-Narratives (Film Session) Chair: Michael Heneise	16:00–17.10 Film screening A Necessary Demon: Religion, Politics, and Caste in India 17.10–17.15 Moumita Sen: Short introduction 17.15–17.25 Q&A 17.25–17.30 Michael Heneise: Closing remarks	The symposium closes with a film that brings together many of our core concerns (myth, caste, indigeneity, and political imagination) through an ethnographic and visual lens. Themes: Mythopolitics; caste and indigeneity; visual storytelling; counter-hegemonic narratives; political imagination
19:30 onwards	Symposium Dinner	City centre

See the full programme, list of speakers, and abstracts here.