The book addresses the urgent need for rethinking the geopolitics and ecology in the Himalaya, by emphasising the entanglements between these two factors. Most international relations analyses of the Himalaya emphasize the central role of the region’s states and their great power struggles. By reducing the region to its state actors, however, we miss the intense more-than-human diversity of the region, and the crucial role that the mountains play in the global environment.
In doing so, the book makes a major contribution to international relations theory by drawing on insights from international political ecology. It first theorises international political ecology and examines the Himalaya as a global region, before moving looking at the international aspects of political ecology in the Himalaya through key areas of the mountains where international politics and ecology are deeply, inextricably linked. It presents three detailed case studies of different environmentaland political issues in the Himalaya: icecaps (the India-China-Pakistan boundary dispute in the western Himalaya), foothills and forests (the Nepal-Bhutan-Sikkim borderlands), and rivers (the India-China Bangladesh dispute over the Brahmaputra River basin). Each case study draws on a mix of source materials including fieldwork, government sources, foreign policy discourse, Himalayan ethnographies, and environmental and ecological sciences scholarship.
Table of Content
Chapter 1: Introduction: Politics and Ecology in the Himalaya.- Chapter 2: Bridging International Relations and Political Ecology.- Chapter 3: The Himalaya as an International Region.- Chapter 4: Militaries on Melting Ice: The Ladakh-Gilgit-Western Tibet Ice caps.- Chapter 5: Foothills, Forests and Fortresses: The Sikkim-Bhutan-Nepal Borderlands.- Chapter 6: Competitive dam building in the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River basin.- Chapter 7: Conclusion: Greening the Himalaya.
About the author
Alexander E. Davis is a lecturer in International Relations at The University of Western Australia. His research focuses on South Asia’s foreign relations, from historical, postcolonial and environmental perspectives.
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