Abstract
Many researchers have studied chars as physical and geomorphological
entities and have categorized them into various ‘types’. This chapter asks: ‘Can
chars be seen also as symbols?’ ‘What do the chars symbolize?’ We investigate these
questions in this chapter, in light of recent social science research that has critiqued
the inherent scientism on which many such studies are founded. In particular, we
argue that the small, unstable and impermanent chars are powerful because they
are symbols of destabilization. By their very existence, chars demolish a number of
dearly held scientific concepts and ideas. Of these, the idea of rivers as carriers of only
water is one. Chars also subvert the notion of people as essentially sedentary and land
as permanent and safe, and disrupt the view of land and water as two fundamentally
separate physical elements of nature. Finally, and most crucially for their futures in
the increasingly uncertain world, chars and the lives of people who live on them also
dislocate the notion of ‘adaptation’, by showing that people on chars are continually
adjusting on a daily basis to make the best out of their local environments. We
deploy ‘chars as destabilizers’ as the theoretical traction to complicate meanings
and perceptions across ‘stable’ and ‘unstable’ in environments to underline that such
environments and habitats are in a continual flux.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Living on the Edge |
Editors | Mohammad Zaman, Mustafa Alam |
Place of Publication | Switzerland |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 25-40 |
Edition | 1 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-73591-3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2021 |