Bitter Shade: Throwing Light on Politics and Ecology in Contemporary Pakistan
Human Organization, Vol. 63, No. 3, Fall 2003
13 Pages Posted: 22 Jul 2013
Abstract
Farmers in the rainfed tracts of Pakistan’s Punjab and Northwest Frontier provinces interpret the on-farm interaction between annual crops and trees in terms of sayah "tree shade". Tree shade is conceived of as an emission, which is thought to have density, temperature, taste, and size (which itself is thought to have length, width, height and duration). Farmers believe that the character of shade and its impact upon their crops varies by tree species and also by season and land type. This complex system of beliefs attests to the commitment of farmers to on-farm tree cultivation and contradicts government foresters’ beliefs that farmers are hostile to the presence of trees on farms. The farmers’ belief system collapses a dichotomy between tree and crop, forest and farm, forest department and farmer, and indeed nature and culture, that it serves the Forest Department to construct. This analysis suggests that the most mundane, quotidian resource practices may have profound political implications, that environmental knowledge is often (if not always) partisan knowledge, and that cultural meaning is not divorced from political-economic dynamics.
Keywords: Pakistan, shade, agroforestry, humoral, political ecology, forest service
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