From the shabars of the Indian Sundarbans: Everyday empirics through photography

Abstract

Predominantly built upon collective practices and complex relations among different actors, the dried fish organizations of the Indian Sundarbans present everyday narratives of lives, experiences and challenges that are shaped by vulnerable social and ecological architecture of the region. This photo essay is a representation of practices, processes and situational complexities inherent in the dried fish camps – or shabars, as they are known in the Bengali dialect – the photos carving out ‘storylines’ focusing on the socially, culturally and historically induced interactions among people, place and entities of the evolving delta.