The ‘day-in-the life’ and ‘behind the scenes’ depictions demonstrate socio-ecological empirics dotting small-scale fisheries in Chilika – the largest brackish water lagoon, sprawling Puri, Khurda, and Ganjam districts of Odisha in eastern India.
The coverage pertains to field realities captured in Barkul (Khurda) during August 2023, as part of the field school organized by, Vulnerability To Viability (V2V) Global Partnership, University of Waterloo, Canada in collaboration with the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and NIRMAN Odisha and under the larger theme of ‘Environmental Change and Governance, Blue Justice and Coastal Livelihoods to Transition from Vulnerability to Viability.’
This photo essay captures (in)visible snippets of (un)settling materialities, co-constituting vulnerable and viable stories from Chilika – a transforming socio-ecological space, shaping and getting shaped by small-scale fishing communities and their contingent adaptative practices.
We acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded ‘Vulnerability to Viability Global Partnership: Supporting Small-scale Fishers in their Transition from Vulnerability to Viability’ Project for organizing the field school and providing fellowship to the first author to participate in the week-long event along with students and mentors from different parts of the world. We are grateful to Md. Emon Rahman from the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh for helping us select and finalize photographs for this essay.
Poulami Ghosh is a Project Student working for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded by the Vulnerability to Viability, Global Partnership Grant, hosted at the University of Waterloo.
Jenia Mukherjee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. She is the Principal Investigator of the V2V project, Indian/West Bengal team.