Description
The paper seeks to bridge the gap between environmental policy formulation and actual practices through a metatheoretical intervention within a decolonial framework. Ontologically, it seeks to foreground relationality. Since an anthropocentric worldview has been seen as the only way of looking at the world, a relational ontological position is not considered relevant for policy studies. In this direction, the paper begins by examining the implication of relational ontological position and social multiplicity, as opposed to Eurocentric ontological singularity. Epistemologically, the paper advocates standpoint epistemologies rather that the unproblematically accepted meanings rooted in the episteme of modernity. It suggests ways to move beyond instrumental epistemologies that are the major reason for present environmental catastrophe and policy failure. With an effort to decolonize environmental governance, the paper focusses on epistemic erasures of traditional resource users. Methodologically, the paper borrows the framework of Hybrid/Plural Climate Studies and Cosmopraxis in order to arrive at a decolonial perspective to assess the community entanglement with the environment. On one hand, adopting a hybrid methodology allows one to move beyond the analytical boundaries of society and nature. Cosmopraxis, on the other hand, is a result of knowledge of adapting and conversing with the environment that is transmitted intergenerationally. It carries the know-how of the ancestors, but it is also nourished through situated and concrete experiences. Therefore, it has the potential of countering epistemic erasures as a consequence of modernity and colonization of the lifeworld. Empirically, the paper examines the case of select communities in the Sundarbans region where their reciprocal and relational engagement with the nature goes beyond spirituality. It engages with the ways in which specific communities engage with the mangrove forest ecosystem. It shows an implicit presence of cosmopraxis where communities learn to engage with the nature through a combination of practices, experiences and rituals.
