Unintentional designs in ecology: The case of river Periyar in Kerala

Abstract

This paper moves across the ecological assemblages of the Periyar basin in Kerala. It argues that the connectivities and unintentional designs that emerge bespeak the Anthropocene in its regional and political peculiarities. The river has never been a conduit of water alone. The narrative builds broadly on ecological relations entrenched in history, most visibly as hydrological regimes. Such regimes are significant because of the riparian densities that articulate the geo-morphology. The different entanglements in ecology, as well as the successive productions of natures, gain significance as ‘recognitions’ during rupture events like the large floods. In contemporary contexts, the versatile flows of capital dissolve markers and boundaries and reconfigure regions in terms of capital. Vikasanam or new urban reforms, apart from political policies, are also ecological designs that normalise exceptions, otherwise reserved for special economic zones. The frictions with new materiality, post dam floods and hydrological controls, during developmental and neoliberal post developmental phases, become moments of recognition, making and unmaking sense of place.