The book addresses the urgent need for rethinking the geopolitics and ecology in the Himalaya, by emphasising the entanglements between these two factors. Most international relations analyses of the Himalaya emphasize the central role of the region’s states and their great power struggles. By reducing the region to its state actors, however, we miss the intense more-than-human diversity of the region, and the crucial role that the mountains play in the global environment.
In doing so, the book makes a major contribution to international relations theory by drawing on insights from international political ecology. It first theorises international political ecology and examines the Himalaya as a global region, before moving looking at the international aspects of political ecology in the Himalaya through key areas of the mountains where international politics and ecology are deeply, inextricably linked. It presents three detailed case studies of different environmental and political issues in the Himalaya: icecaps (the India-China-Pakistan boundary dispute in the western Himalaya), foothills and forests (the Nepal-Bhutan-Sikkim borderlands), and rivers (the India-China Bangladesh dispute over the Brahmaputra River basin). Each case study draws on a mix of source materials including fieldwork, government sources, foreign policy discourse, Himalayan ethnographies, and environmental and ecological sciences scholarship.
Author(s): Alexander E. Davis
Series: Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 209
City: Singapore
Acknowledgements
About This Book
Contents
Abbreviations
1 Politics and Ecology in the Himalaya
Introduction: Making States on Moving Mountains
Political Ecology and International Relations in Dialogue
Scientific Knowledge, Environmental Crisis and the Anthropocene
Outline of the Book
Bibliography
2 Bridging International Relations and Political Ecology
Introduction: International Relations and Political Ecology
How Does the Himalaya Look in IR?
Political Ecology and Its International Entanglements
Critical International Relations in Dialogue with Political Ecology
Conclusion: An International Political Ecology Approach
Bibliography
3 The Himalaya as an International Region
Introduction: Surveying the Himalaya
The Transformation of the Himalaya
Organising Politics at High-Altitude
State-making in the Himalaya
The Contemporary Environment
International Organisations and the Himalaya
Languages and Diversity Across Borders in the Himalaya
Conclusion: A New Himalayan Research Agenda for IR
Bibliography
4 Militaries on Melting Ice: The Ladakh-Gilgit-Western Tibet Ice Caps
Introduction: Ecological and Geopolitical Entanglements on Ice
Environmental State-making in the Western Himalaya
The ‘Decolonization’ of the Western Himalaya
Siachen, Kargil, and the 2020 India–China conflict
Cultural and Ecological Entanglements
Dams and Power Generation
Conclusion: Bordering High Altitudes
Bibliography
5 Foothills, Forests and Fortresses: The Sikkim-Bhutan-Nepal Borderlands
Introduction: The Sikkim-Nepal-Bhutan borderlands
The Independent Lives of Sikkim, Nepal and Bhutan
Bhutan: Cultural Distinctiveness Between India and China
Sikkim: Independence and Annexation
Borders, Animals and More-than-human Ecologies
Transboundary Conservation Across Altitudes: Yaks, Mountains and Rivers
The Kangchenjunga Transboundary Landscape
Green(wash)ing the Himalaya? Conservation, Dams and Borders
Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Model
Green Sikkim, Organic Sikkim: Development ‘Missions’ and Ecology
Conclusion: A Mixed Environmental Record
Bibliography
6 Competitive Dam Building in the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River Basin
Introduction: Extracting ‘Green’ Energy from Himalayan Rivers
Understanding the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River Basin
International Relations and the Brahmaputra River Basin
Culture, Geopolitics and Ecology in the Brahmaputra River Basin
International Organisations, Development Assistance, and the Brahmaputra’s Geopolitics
The Geopolitics of Dams in the Brahmaputra River Basin
Competing Dams on the Brahmaputra: China’s Mega-dam and India’s Upper Siang Projects
Conclusion: Retheorising and Remaking the Brahmaputra River Basin
Bibliography
7 Conclusion: Greening the Himalaya
Introduction: Breaking The Feedback Loops?
Theorising from the Himalaya
Returning to Geopolitics and Ecology: What Works and What Does Not
Bibliography
Index
