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ISBN: HB: 9780300188301

Yale University Press

June 2013

288 pp.

23.4x15.6 cm

11 black&white illus.

HB:
£57,00
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Dancing with the River

People and Life on the Chars of South Asia

This remarkable book provides a rare look at the microcosmic world of "hybrid landscapes" – an increasingly popular topic among geographers and environmentalists – by examining chars, which are part-land, part-water, low-lying, sandy masses within the riverbeds in the flood plains of lower Bengal. Throughout Deltaic Bengal in South Asia, chars house people who move around, make a living by adjusting to the river and its changeable moods, and live each day as best as they possibly can. This allows us to rethink our notions of resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to change. The result is a new way of looking at life. Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Gopa Samanta are experts on poverty and water management and Lahiri-Dutt grew up next to the Damodar River, which is part of the subject matter covered in the book.

Reviews

"'Dancing with the River' provides an intellectually rich account of the intimate assembling of humans and non-humans in the production of the hybrid wet environments of the Chars in South Asia. Shaped as much by the flow of water as by local practices and national and global power interventions, the authors develop a masterly account of how physical processes and social relations fuse together in the production of a thoroughly socialised nature" – Erik Swyngedouw, author of "Social Power and the Urbanization of Nature"