SARI 'Book Adda' with Emeritus Professor Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, AO

‘Everyday Justice in India's Coal Transition: Testimonies from the Margins of Society’ Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt and Patrik Oskarsson
Oxford University Press, 2026

Everyday Justice in India's Coal Transition reimagines justice by exploring what a 'just transition' away from coal could look like in India. It defines 'everyday justice' more broadly to include informal economies and labour, as well as the realities of human lives that have been fundamentally altered by coal mining. In doing so, it acknowledges the rights of local communities to make choices about their own future, to have attachments to their own place and to other local people, and, finally, to participate in political decisions and to hold property. It builds a compelling case for everyday justice in India's coal transition through three kinds of evidence: testimonies collected from the same individuals over more than two decades, beginning in the late 1990s, to present a temporal view of their altered livelihoods and worldviews; a detailed examination of coal production and transport by various agents and unconventional labour arrangements therein; and the degradation of the landscape and decay of peasantry in older coal mining regions situated near the Jharkhand region in eastern India.

Through decades of research, observation, interaction, and conversation with people, Lahiri-Dutt and Oskarsson provide vital insights for those aiming to understand grassroots perspectives and the need for multiple approaches to justice.

About the book author:
 
Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, AO, is an Emeritus Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Law, Governance and Policy. She uses the lens of Feminist Political Ecology to research the gender-related challenges in natural resource use among local communities. In particular, she has contributed to the understanding of large industrial and informal, artisanal, and small-scale extractive industries and quarries, in water resource management, and the increasingly feminised agriculture in the majority world. Kuntala has research experience in South Asian countries, as well as in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Papua New Guinea and Mongolia. Kuntala’s forthcoming book is India’s Energy Transition, to be published in 2027 by Oxford University Press.

More information about Kuntala can be gleaned from her staff page: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/people/kuntala-lahiri-dutt  

Discussants:  

Dr Francis Markham is an economic geographer and a Fellow at the ANU Centre for Indigenous Policy Research.

Associate Professor Mandy Yap is a Fellow at the ANU Centre for Indigenous Policy Research. 

Professor Nicholas Bainton is an anthropologist with the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance.

Light refreshments will be provided.

Click here to join our mailing list.