Rhythms of Disturbance and Resilience : The diversity of human and non-human worlds in a mangrove ecosystem
Aug 15, 2021
In ecology, disturbance and resilience are often seen as two sides of the same coin. Ecosystems that experience moderate levels of disturbance are predicted to harbor more biodiversity and expected to be more resilient. Mangroves of my field site, Bhitarkanika are in fact known to exhibit the largest diversity of mangrove true species in the country. The region is also inhabited by a diversity of cultures—Odia, Bengali, and the many refugees that came here between 1961 and 1971 from Bangladesh. Added layers of religion, caste and gender further influence agency in decision making, land ownership and rights, as well as the level of state influence in changing the landscape. The rhythms of everyday life, intersect, with unequal positions of power across space and time, often transgressing the fuzzy boundaries of gender, religion, caste and culture, just like the fuzziness between land-mangrove-water.
Through my poetry and a music collaboration, I wanted to highlight the intersectionality of human agency especially of marginalized communities—the diversity of voices in mangrove conservation that are underrepresented, silent or go unnoticed, the diversity of mangrove species—each with different levels of resilience, recovery time and regeneration and the stressors that make/break ecosystems.
The poetry and music try to encapsulate the rhythm of these systems by using different instruments that resemble how individual components are interconnected in an ecosystem. The forest struggles to maintain harmony, reflected through the increasing note intensities that resemble the myriad disturbances that these trees encounter. Similarly, women in my field who have direct interactions with these forests are entangled in cultural and socioeconomic norms which don’t generally conform to ideas of conservation, but essentially live it through the choices they make each day. Disturbance/Resilience highlights the rhythms of intersectionality between mangrove-human-non-human worlds.