Abstract
This paper looks at the transformation of people-environment relationships in the context of road construction in Ladakh. The relationship between landscape, roads and road construction is explored through a political ecology study based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Ladakhi villagers and migrant road workers along the Zangskar Highway. In the paper, I argue that environmental transformation and road construction are determined by different ideological constructions of the landscape, mediated through power relations and expressed through political struggles. Further, I show that landscape constructions are recursively shaped by people’s role in environmental transformations. Finally, the article examines the impact of roads on people’s mobility and on the way the landscape is mentally constructed.
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Notes
- 1.
I am using the three concepts of nature, environment and landscape more or less interchangeably here, although, arguably, the meanings are different. Throughout this paper, I am looking at perceptions of the environment through the concept of landscape. Manmohan referred to ʻnatureʼ, a contested concept that evokes a larger debate. Let us take the three concepts as three social constructs that refer to different aspects of the same reality.
- 2.
At the time of fieldwork (2006–2009), approximately 40% of the Zangskar Highway had been completed. The only road connection to Padum in Zangskar was through Kargil, while the village of Lingshed – to which this article refers – was still a three-day walk from any road. Since then, BRO has opened the section of the Zangskar Highway from Padum to Darcha (and Manali) in Himachal Pradesh, which is also accessible to heavy vehicles since 2022 (Times of India 2022). PWD (and then BRO) have also built a road from Wanla to Padum via Photoksar, which connects Linghsed since 2020. While construction of the Chadar road has progressed, it still remains incomplete as of 2023.
- 3.
Thirteen khal of land is the area that can be ploughed in 1 day by one yoke of dzo. Similarly, in Nepal the land unit is the ropani, which corresponds to the area that can be planted in 1 day by one man. 1 ropani = 1 kanal = 1/20th of a hectare. Other land units are the ha, corresponding to the area that can be ploughed in 1 day by one yoke of oxen, the mana (grain yield) and the muri (grain yield) (Osmaston & Rabgyas, pp. 129). Note that weights are also measured according to the carrying capacity of men and pack animals.
- 4.
The ʻChadar Roadʼ designates the portion along the Zangskar River, from Nyemo to Padum, whereas the ʻZangskar highwayʼ designates the totality of the road, from Nyemo to Darcha. It is difficult to date the beginning of the construction of the Chadar road since the (PWD) offices in Leh – and with it all the records regarding road construction in Ladakh – ʻaccidentallyʼ burnt down in 2007, but some of my informants have dated it as far back as 1971 or 1979 (personal communication, Leh, July 2007).
- 5.
Soling consists in laying and compacting stone aggregate on the road, as foundation or to provide better strength to the foundation of the road.
- 6.
Fictive name. BRO workers requested that their testimony remain anonymous.
- 7.
The two mobility maps were drawn during participatory field inquiries conducted in Lingshed and Alchi in 2007 and 2008, and represent the average number of journeys done over a year by a man in Lingshed.
- 8.
In a way, movements of people and animals repeated over time also physically shape the landscape by making trails in the slope or leaving temporary traces through the ice and snow. Movements are also constitutive of the landscape.
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Demenge, J. (2023). “We Are Puppets in the Hands of Nature”: Road Construction and the Transformation of People-Environment Relationships in Ladakh. In: Humbert-Droz, B., Dame, J., Morup, T. (eds) Environmental Change and Development in Ladakh, Indian Trans-Himalaya. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42494-6_16
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