Noteable contributors of ecotone literary journal

In a way, both Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal and its urban centre, as well as the Sundarbans, the low-lying essentially rural and poor region that is made up of hundreds of islands, are socio-cultural вЂecotonesвЂ™. The region of Bengal was partitioned twice in the 20thВ century and Bengalis have numerous representations of what the Bengali вЂhomelandвЂ™ meant and means (Jones 2011: 373 Kabir 2013). One can argue that Bengal itself is a kind of ecotone compared to the Hindi-speaking, Hindutva-loving, deeply patriarchal north Indian belt. This chapter will discuss recent perceptions about nonhuman animals, meat and bodies between Indian middle-class higher-caste urbanites and subaltern Bengali communities (mainly of the Sundarbans) to critically compare their paradoxical differences.

Social anthropology as a discipline has, more recently, helped us understand these вЂecotonesвЂ™ of sorts. In the context of Bengal, for example, how do different communities negotiate shared space when notions of about nonhuman animals and human bodies differ?ДўSpecific but little known вЂpoints of contactвЂ™ are fascinating as they have necessarily germinated novel cultural practices. So certain communities, usually lesser known as on the margins, as well as subaltern, help us understand new forms of belonging, bonding, and citizenship to specific places. Literary and political movements necessarily cross paths and pollinate, following different routes and creating a diverse universe, in which a single and fixed origin can only be questioned. As ecotones are the вЂcontact zonesвЂ™ between cultures (PrattВ 1991) in contexts such as migration, diaspora, refugee movements and other postcolonial displacements and environmental evacuations, вЂhow do the languages, the cultural practices, the scientific knowledge, and environmental concerns meet and transform in these newly constructedВ ecotones?вЂ™-they ask. in an urge to explore the вЂcomplex chemistryвЂ™ of creolizing worlds (Cohen 1997). For the convenors of this conference, and I cite, вЂan вЂњecotoneвЂќ may also indicate a place where two communities meet, at times creolizing or germinating into a new community.вЂ™ As they explain, this term, traditionally used in environmental studies and geography, has here been applied to postcolonial studies in disciplines such as literature, history, the arts, social and political sciences,В ethnic studies, ecocriticism, etc. Ecotones are both of great environmental importance as well as being very fragile ecospheres. This could be, for example, an area of marshland between a river and the riverbank, a clearing within a forest or a much larger areaвЂ™ (ThorpeВ 2014). In a way, the politicised Hindutva middle class regulate, control, protect what they have come to see as вЂtheir worldвЂ™ and this is distinct from a position where subaltern groups from ecotones see themselves as part of a whole collective, one not theirs to вЂregulateвЂ™, вЂcontrolвЂ™, or вЂprotectвЂ™ but one to experience and try make sense of.ДЎвЂAnВ EcotoneВ describes an area that acts as a transition or boundaryВ between two ecosystems. The paper does that by exploring some of the recent politicised use of the cow and contrasting it to how вЂecotonal societiesвЂ™ have lived with nonhuman animals to argue that these engagements are linked to ways of understanding our purpose within our environment. The paper argues that the use and understanding of вЂnatureвЂ™ in contemporary middle-class India contrasts with modes of engaged multi-species environmental вЂecotonesвЂ™ that have been experienced by the subaltern majority of Bengalis both in Bangladesh as well as in West Bengal. Highlighting recent debates around environmentalism and its meanings and purposes in the context of South Asia, this paper reintroduces caste and religious marginality, to critically examine the different ways people have of apprehending their environment.

Noteable contributors of ecotone literary journal