Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg
Erscheinungsjahr:
2019
Medientyp:
Text
Schlagworte:
belonging
displacement
visthapit
development
Uttarakhand
Himalayas
India
Tehri
dam
New Tehri
ddc:300
Beschreibung:
When the Tehri Dam in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand submerged the town of Tehri, the locals found themselves turned into visthapit (the ‘displaced’). This new position, a consequence of dam induced displacement and relocation to new geographies, triggered recollections of their previous lives in Tehri. Often recalled as a local cultural centre for surrounding villages, the old town appears in daily conversations of its former residents. By discussing Tehri, the oustees return to a place they can now experience only tangentially. This article explores how displacement and belonging come to be expressed through a place that has no existing cartographic coordinates – a place living in memories. My ethnographic work in the town of New Tehri, a namesake built for the purpose of relocation, guides these arguments.
Lizenz:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Quellsystem:
Ethnoscripts - Zeitschrift für aktuelle ethnologische Studien