Bitter Shade: Throwing Light on Politics and Ecology in Contemporary Pakistan

Abstract

Farmers in the rainfed tracts of Pakistan’s Punjab and North-West Frontier Provinces interpret the on-farm interaction between annual crops and trees in terms of sayah, “tree shade.” Tree shade is conceived as an emission that is thought to have density, temperature, taste, and size (which itself is thought to have length, width, height, and duration). Farmers believe the character of shade and its impact upon their crops varies by tree species and also by season and land type. This complex system of beliefs attests to the commitment of farmers to on-farm tree cultivation and contradicts government foresters’ beliefs that farmers are hostile to the presence of trees on farms. The farmers’ belief system collapses a dichotomy between tree and crop, forest and farm, forest department and farmer, and indeed nature and culture, that serves the interests of the Forest Department. This analysis suggests that the most mundane, quotidian resource practices may have profound political implications, that environmental knowledge is often (if not always) partisan knowledge, and that cultural meaning is not divorced from politicaleconomic dynamics.