Suneel Kumar

The proposed research seeks to explore how altered flow of water in the Indus River transforms the symbolic, material and multispecies relations by studying the relational ontology of Sindhi fishing communities and the practices and enactments of humans, other-than-human beings and things in Pakistan’s Indus delta. As Environmental degradation making the world more unlivable, scholars are exploring other lifeways that not only go beyond modernist realms but also “beyond the human” (Kohn 2013). In doing so, this research explores the life of the Indus delta — a so-called nonliving entity. This research uses “trace” (Haraway 2016) as a method to “track and follow” various human — fisherfolk, and governance officials, and other-than-human beings — fish, mangroves, and saint Khizer — and things — sediment and water to explore how beings and things partake in the life of the delta, creating and transforming each other. This research questions the concept of the delta as ?land? separate from the “water” investigating the hybridity of the delta as land-in-the-water to reconceptualize the delta ontologically, politically and historically. I use theories of ontological anthropology, science and technology studies, and new materialism.