Congratulations to Monzima Haque for winning the Graduate Paper Contest at DOPE 12!!

Bio:

Monzima Haque is a 2nd year Ph.D. student at the School of International Service (SIS), American University. She received her M.A. in International Affairs and Development from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, Washington DC, USA. She has been a recipient of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship (2015 -2017) and United Nations Association Graduate Fellowship in Washington DC (2017). She completed her MSS and BSS from the Department of International Relations at the University of Dhaka. Her research focuses on global environmental politics, environmental resources governance, refugees and displaced population, hydro politics, and international diplomacy. Her paper is titled, "Dialectics of Precarity: The Farmers’ Protest in India".

Abstract:

This paper examines the dialectical relationship of precarity – in terms of unequal exposure to vulnerabilities by farmers and as well as its potential to organize collective resistance – through an examination of the precarious lives of marginalized farmers in India and the farmers’ protest of 2020-2021. Building on the taxonomic framework of precarity by Butler (2012), this paper describes precarity in two distinct but interrelated terms: first, the unequal implications and uneven diffusion of structural conditions of agrarian development in India – fostered by the Green Revolution and adoption of neoliberal policies – which differentially exposed a class of farmers to increased vulnerabilities; second, the agency inherent in the collective assemblage expressed through the farmers’ protest to
challenge the structural forces amid precarity. The national and transnational structural forces manifested through neoliberal agrarian policies have manufactured vulnerabilities for farmers through detrimental policies. These forces thrive on the precariousness of the marginalized and benefit from limiting their rights. At the same time, collective resistance – in the form of strike, protest, march, and demonstration – by these precarious bodies demonstrates their social and political agency and potential to exercise power towards emancipation. This paper challenges the reductionist understanding of farmers’ precariousness and recognizes their collective agency in seeking rights. The
significance of the farmers' movement in India (2020 onward) lies in its potential to be situated within the broader context of the precarity of the global South.