How Policy Marginalizes Diversity: Politics of Knowledge in India’s Biodiesel Promotion

Abstract

ABSTRACT India’s 2009 policy on biodiesel remains controversial to date. It excludes voices of marginalized people such as landless workers and knowledges associated with diverse feedstock cultivation practices. It considers the ‘upscaling’ of biodiesel production to be straightforward, based on easy transferability between diverse socio-material contexts. The policy’s marginalization of the immense diversity of India’s lands, peoples, perspectives, and practices is based on a neglect of socio-material relations and their multiplicity. A relational analysis highlights the need for alternate inclusive policy processes. Such processes include as evidence the diverse knowledges of interested people and relevant things. They recognize that each entity is known differently depending on how its socio-material relations are approached. Inclusive policy processes also highlight the adjustments that are required to translate a policy out of one socio-material setting and into another. Finally, inclusive policy processes help build realities relying not only on the knowledges from policy experts and firms, but also on the marginalized knowledges of grassroots actors such as smallholders and environmental activists.