“Freedoms” and (Toxic) Opportunities in the Global Pesticide Complex

Anupriya Pandey, SUNY Buffalo

This paper examines the intersections of gender, caste, and ecology through the lived experiences of Dalit women engaged in pesticide-intensive vegetable farming in rural India. For the first time, Dalit women have entered this labor-intensive farming sector, supported by income from their migrant husbands. This shift coincides with the proliferation of pesticide retail stores and the reassertion of dominant OBC caste farming families as “technical experts.” Drawing on nine months of ethnographic data from Bihar, the paper explores how Dalit women navigate the contradictions of “freedoms” and (toxic) opportunities offered by the Global Pesticide Complex. For even though chemically intensive farming may offer economic independence and relief from performing exploitative labor on dominant caste lands, it also brings heightened exposure to hazardous chemicals, ecological degradation, and precarious financial burdens along with feelings of anxiety and despair. Situating Dalit women at the heart of Critical Caste Ecologies—a perspective that interrogates the historical and material dimensions of caste relations and its socio-ecological entanglements—this study reveals how new technologies and chemicals reinforce, rather than dismantle, caste hierarchies. By centering the embodied experiences of Dalit women, the paper sheds light on their struggles to resist caste-patriarchal oppression, reclaim dignity, and carve out alternative livelihoods.

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 Presented in Session 72. Ecosystems as Case and Concept