Precarious Livelihoods in Eastern India's Coal Tracts

Author(s): Itay Noy

Type: Photograph

Department: Department of Anthropology

Exhibit no: 3


Itay Noy
Five tribal women in India carrying coal on their heads for peddling, from the slag heap of a nearby mine.

My research explores the impact of the state-owned coal mining industry in eastern India on local tribal communities, who have been gradually dispossessed of their land through the expansion of opencast collieries, and have taken to illegal peddling of scavenged coal as a way to make a precarious living.

Here, five women carry coal on their heads for peddling, from the slag heap of a nearby mine.