Time: 3pm to 4:30pm AEDT
Date: Friday, 2 August 2024
Speaker: Remeen Firoz, PhD Candidate
Venue: 1.04 Coombs Extension and Online via Zoom
Meeting ID: 345 072 5439
Passcode: 991667
Remeen's research focuses on Munda indigenous communities – their lives and livelihoods in Sundarban (Bangladesh) – the largest mangrove forest in the world and a biodiverse transboundary ecosystem shared with India. Remeen is mapping their vulnerabilities and resilience in times of climate change to understand how their identities are shaped by human agencies like the Forest Department and more than human entities such as tidal rivers, bees, tigers, fish and folk deities like Bonbibi (Forest Goddess).
Remeen is documenting the knowledge and practices of Munda in Sundarban to identify how they are utilised for engaging with diverse agencies, and to co-exist with flora and fauna of this World Heritage Site. The main argument of the thesis is that Munda in Kalinchi, a village in Sundarban encounter multiple vulnerabilities in current times of ‘polycrisis’ that include climate change, anthropogenic environmental degradation, exclusionary forest policies, socio-political discrimination and severe marginalisation. As coping strategies to respond and adapt to the increasingly challenging circumstances, they engage in illicit practices, resort to supernatural entities and alter their identities, to ensure their existence as adibashi (indigenous) community in the western part of Sundarban. Remeen emphasises that Munda are not just victims of poverty and climatic extremes, rather they are dynamically engaged in negotiation with their environment and socio-economic structures of power and governance.
About Remeen
Remeen Firoz is a PhD candidate in anthropology in the School of Culture, History & Language at the Australian National University. She is an Environmental Humanities scholar, academically trained in Environment and Development Studies. She worked as an environmental practitioner for nearly two decades in the fields of biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation in Bangladesh.
Event Speakers
CHL PhD Candidate Remeen Firoz
Remeen's key areas of interest are traditional environmental knowledge, Munda indigenous community, Sundarban mangrove ecosystem, natural resource governance, locally led adaptation, environmental memory and visual anthropology.