Between deficit rains and surplus populations: The political ecology of a climate-resilient village in South India

Abstract

Projects to foster climate-resilience have become a standard feature of agricultural and rural development strategies across the global South. Yet what resilience means in practice is uncertain and contested. To this end, we examine a state-led project to create a ‘climate-resilient village’ in a drought-prone region of south India. The project involved extensive investments in watershed development, agro-forestry and crop varietal enhancement with the goal of creating a model from which climate-resilient practices could diffuse outwards. We analyse the politics behind this project and highlight its attempt to build resilience through field-level infrastructures and practices. While some project interventions provided generalised benefits, the failure to explicitly address local social structures and power relations created significant unevenness and left resources open to capture by elites. On this basis, we question the narrowness of resilience perspectives used to guide to adaptation planning. For many smallholders, a meaningful notion of ‘resilience’ would entail buffering exposure not just to climatic stresses but also to local power relations and market forces, yet these dynamics were silenced in official project discourse.