Journal article / Impact of Climate Change on Small-Scale Fisheries

Punya, P., V. Kripa, Shelton Padua, K. Sunil Mohamed, and P. O. Nameer. ‘Impact of Environmental Changes on the Fishery of Motorized and Non-motorized Sub-sectors of the Upwelling Zone of Kerala, Southeastern Arabian Sea’. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 250 (March 2021), Article 107144.

Abstract: The marine waters of Kerala state along the southwest coast of India are among the most productive upwelling regions in the southeastern Arabian Sea. Analyses were made to assess the impact of environmental changes on the marine fish catch using motorised and non-motorised craft operating off the coast.

The catch per unit effort (CPUE) of total landings, OBGN (outboard gillnet), OBTN (outboard trawlnet), NM (non-motorised) crafts, as well as the catch of 5 major fish resources Indian mackerel, lesser sardines, Stolephorus spp., scads, and penaeid prawns were obtained. Sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll, salinity, rainfall, sea level anomaly, multivariate ENSO index, dipole mode index, local temperature anomaly, degree heating month (DHM), degree cooling month (DCM) and surface currents were used as variables to investigate the relationship between environment and fishery.

SST, chlorophyll, rainfall, salinity, yearly DCM and surface currents all had significant influences on the marine fisheries along the Kerala coast. Lower SST, high salinity, and rainfall promote the fisheries of both small pelagics and large pelagic groups like scads.

Along with the negative relationship between SST and fishery, the present analyses also indicate a positive relationship with yearly DCM, which clearly indicates that the warming of coastal waters has a negative impact on fisheries along the Kerala coast.

From these results, we find that ocean currents can play a crucial role in fish recruitment in the coastal waters of Kerala. Primary production, the key factor for marine fishery production, was found to be controlled by environmental factors like SST and currents. These results point to the vulnerability of the small-scale fisheries sector of the tropical upwelling zone to increasing SST and climate change.

More info: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2020.107144
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Journal article / Women’s Political Labour in Northern Kerala

Ajay, Anamika. ‘Engendering Political Labour: Findings from a Kerala Village’. Studies in Indian Politics. Published ahead of print, 27 March 2021.

Abstract: Literature on Indian politics has largely under-examined the role of the family in shaping party politics, with the exception of studies on dynasticism. There is a paucity of research that looks at the complex ways in which intimate lives and party politics are intertwined.

This article contributes to feminist analyses of Indian party politics by conceptualising politics and political labour in a way that does not exclude the role of the family. It presents the case study of a village in northern Kerala, which has been witnessing heightened political conflicts, to show how personal experiences and family disputes get politicised.

As domestic and political spheres bleed into each other, political parties become hugely dependent on feminine ideals and women’s everyday labour, affects, and sociality to survive electoral competitions. Yet, the patriarchal family and masculinised local party leadership use gender ideologies to celebrate hypermasculine political participation, undervalue women’s labour, and limit their political aspirations.

More info: https://doi.org/10.1177/2321023021999142

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Journal article / The 2018 Flood: Preparedness, Public Health Effects, Lessons

Varughese, Anil, and Chithra Purushothaman. ‘Climate Change and Public Health in India: The 2018 Kerala Floods’. World Medical & Health Policy 13, no. 1 (March 2021): 16–35.

Abstract: Kerala is one of India’s most vulnerable states in India when it comes to climate‐induced disasters. Kerala’s public health department grappled with a flood of unprecedented magnitude in August 2018.

Situating the flood in the context of Kerala’s state and society, this paper addresses three questions: What was the level of flood‐prevention preparedness? What were the public health effects and how were they managed? Finally, what policy lessons were learned?

Drawing from reports of relevant national and state agencies responsible for disaster management as well as first‐hand accounts of nongovernmental organisations and media coverage, this paper argues that while Kerala’s flood‐prevention preparedness was far from ideal, its postflood response in mounting a rapid and effective rescue and relief operation as well as in preventing a public health crisis was commendable.

The paper also shows that impressive achievements in climate‐disaster health management can be achieved through a decentralised and participatory public health system in which coordinated public action is managed by a capacious state with the active collaboration of civil society.

More info and full text (free access): https://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.429

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Blog post / Kerala’s Upper-Caste Women

Sruthi Herbert. “The Great Indian Kitchen: A Narrative of Upper-Caste Women’s Victimhood and Effortless Solidarities”.

Ala: A Kerala Studies Blog, March 2021.

Excerpt : Sruthi Herbert writes about The Great Indian Kitchen’s attempt to frame upper-caste women’s interests as all women’s interests. 

More info : http://ala.keralascholars.org/issues/31/the-great-indian-kitchen-caste/

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Podcast / Mruduladevi

മൃദുലാദേവി: ജാതീയത, സിനിമ, രാഷ്ട്രീയം

Ala: A Kerala Studies Blog, March 2021.

Excerpt : We speak with Mruduladevi S. about her multifaceted political interventions. Mruduladevi S. has become a well-recognised name after she composed beautiful songs in Paluva dialect for this year’s film The Great Indian Kitchen. However, for the past six years, she has been an active presence in Kerala’s cultural and political spheres as a Dalit–Ambedkarite feminist, writer, activist, and thinker.

More info : http://ala.keralascholars.org/issues/31/podcast-mruduladevi-caste-cinema-politics/

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Blog post / Electoral Politics in Kerala

J. Prabhash. “Kerala 2021: Electoral Politics in Times of Post-Truth”.

Ala: A Kerala Studies Blog, March 2021.

Excerpt : As Kerala gears towards Assembly Elections 2021, J Prabhash offers a critique of the strategies adopted by the major political fronts in the race to power, and the changing dynamics of Kerala’s electoral politics.

More info : http://ala.keralascholars.org/issues/31/kerala-2021-electoral-politics/

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Journal article / Welfare Schemes in Kerala for Transgender Individuals

Kurian, Megha, and Greeshma Manoj. ‘Transgenders in the Mainstream: Welfare Schemes in Kerala—Kochi Metro Rail Project, Education Programme, Health Clinics, and Old-Age Pension’. Indian Journal of Gender Studies. Published ahead of print, 15 March 2021.

Abstract (edited): Marginalisation is the process which inhibits an individual or community from enjoying the rights, privileges, resources, or opportunities enjoyed by other members of the society. Of all its marginalised sections, society most often tends to ignore the conditions of transgender persons. The 2011 census reported 480,000 of India’s population as transgender.

Kerala pioneered a model for a trans-friendly state with the launch of a 10-day-long state-wide survey, which was followed by a state policy for transgender individuals, a justice board, India’s first transgender school, scholarships for transgender individuals, health clinics, old-age pensions, and employment for them in the Kochi Metro as well as various literary, sports, and fashion events.

This study is an attempt to critically explore the welfare schemes for transgender persons in Kerala amidst recent developments.

More info: https://doi.org/10.1177/0971521521997961

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Journal article / Decolonising Knowledge of Dalits’ Christian Conversion

Paul, Vinil Baby. ‘Dalit Conversion Memories in Colonial Kerala and Decolonisation of Knowledge’. South Asia Research. Published ahead of print, 1 April 2021.

Abstract: This article seeks to decolonise knowledge of the conventional history of Dalits’ Christian conversion and its implications in colonial Kerala.

As the missionary archive is the only source of Dalit Christian history writing in Kerala, in this historiography social historians have been unable to include the memories of Protestant missionary work at the local level by the local people themselves. Their experiences and rich accounts are marked by dramatic actions to gain socio-economic freedom and to establish a safe environment with scope for future development.

This article identifies how Dalit Christians themselves, in a specific locality, remember their conversion history, suggesting thereby the scope for a valuable addition to the archive.

More info: https://doi.org/10.1177/02627280211000166
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Journal article / Migration to the Gulf: No End in Sight

Mufsin, Puthan Purayil, and Puthan Purayil Muhsin. ‘Return Migration amidst a Pandemic: Reflections on Kerala’s Gulf Migration’. Journal of Migration Affairs III, no. 1 (September 2020): 99–107.

Abstract (crafted): In 2020, almost 25% of Malayali expatriates in the Gulf countries expressed the desire to return to Kerala. In media discussions regarding the impact of Covid-19 on Kerala’s Gulf expatriates, this led many to predict the end of Kerala’s Gulf dream.

But a careful reading of Kerala’s migration story reveals a different reality. Using secondary data and observations from an ongoing ethnographic study of the Mappila Gulf migrants in Kerala’s northern migration belt, we argue that the long-standing circular movement between Kerala and the Persian Gulf states is not over.

More info and full text: https://doi.org/10.36931/jma.2020.3.1.99-107

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Event / Throne Diplomacy

Transcultural Objects and Colonial Realpolitik in the Princely State of Travancore, India: The History of Queen Victoria’s Ivory Throne

hosted by International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden, Netherlands)

7 April 2021 (Wednesday)
14:00 hrs Central European Summer Time (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
webinar (registration link)
in English

About the event: In 1876, Queen Victoria took the title of Empress of India. Her first official photograph shows her dressed in all black, seated regally on an exquisite ivory throne. The photograph is about the Empress, front and centre. But over her head, like a spectre, rises the pinnacle of the throne. This pinnacle is not the heraldic British lion but a conch shell, the symbol for the king of Travancore.

In this talk, Deepthi Murali examines the transcultural nature of the production of art objects in the mid-19th century in the princely state of Travancore, India, through the study of an ivory throne and footstool made for Queen Victoria. Presented to her as a gift on the occasion of The Great Exhibition of 1851 by Uthram Thirunal Martanda Varma, the king of Travancore, the throne quickly became one of the most popular exhibits. Later, it became part of the imperial interiors, and in 1876, it became Victoria’s chair of state.

The throne’s popularity gave birth to an international ivory carving industry in Travancore that employed many lower caste artists for the next century. Moreover, the transcultural nature of the throne made it an object capable of diplomatic communiqué between an endangered princely state and the British imperial centre at a time when the British East India Company continued direct rule on the subcontinent.

The ‘throne diplomacy’, as Deepthi Murali calls it, demonstrates the ability of transcultural objects to mediate between different cultural spheres, especially in spaces where human mediation was perhaps not possible. Simultaneously, Murali enumerates the nature of transcultural artistic production and processes in the sub-imperial princely sphere in the mid-19th century.

About the speaker: Deepthi Murali is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. She received her PhD in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Deepthi’s current projects include converting her dissertation ‘Transculturality, Sensoriality, and Politics of Decorative Arts of Travancore, India’ into a book and a digital art history project on 18th-century Indian cotton textiles. Deepthi is also deeply interested in the dissemination of scholarship as public history, which she does through her website and podcast. Her research and work have been funded by the American Institute of Indian Studies, Yale Centre for British Art, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

More info: https://www.iias.asia/events/transcultural-objects-and-colonial-realpolitik-princely-state-travancore-india-history-queen

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