The book Living with Oil and Coal by Dolly Kikon is an ethnographic work done in the foothills of Assam and Nagaland. These regions are known for their natural resources and the struggle for control over the extractions of those resources. Introducing the book with her own experience of crossing the foothills border, Kikon looks at the production of boundaries through social and cultural relationships between the hills of Nagaland and the plains of Assam. She narrates stories and everyday conversations of alliances and rivalries to portray this relationship between the hills and the plains, the state and the society, natural resources and political parties and private companies. Through these narratives, she discusses the everyday minutiae of diverse symbolic representation of spaces like oil and coal fields as defined by both the residents and non-residents and the state.

With seven chapters and an epilogue, Kikon captures the ‘insider-outsider’ viewpoint in each chapter by connecting people’s imaginations and lived experiences in the oil and coal regions.  Narrating stories of love, friendship, gift exchanges, she takes the reader to the larger socio-political contestations that the borderlands experience. Here, foothills are seen as beyond “a geological and political space” (p 7).

For example, the practice of access and ownership of land and resources is different for the local residents from the perceptions of the state officials and the security forces of Assam and Nagaland. Jacob’s story of jackfruit seed captures how individuals claim their rights over a particular space by planting a tree, naming them and tilling the land. Jacob, who is an Adivasi living in the village of Gorejan, recounts how the jackfruit carries the history of his family in Jharkhand. Kikon, with the power of story-telling, clearly questions how the notion of land has always been demarcated. She writes,

On the one hand, land is perceived as an independent entity that must be secured and tamed by investing one’s labour and time. On the other hand, it is also the foundation where the interests of the community and notions of sovereignty and belonging can be planted, like the story of the jackfruit seeds from Jharkhand (p 42).

One of the significant parts of her book is the two chapters where she elaborated on the notion of morom (love). Here, morom, an Assamese term but also used in Nagamese (the lingua franca in the foothills of Assam and Nagaland), display the power relations strewn through the different levels of hierarchy. Morom is not limited to a physical attraction. Instead, itreflects multiple emotions and relationships between servant and master, bonds between friends, care for parents and the elderly. Through these acts of morom, kinship and gender relations in the foothills are reproduced.

The story of Lulu, who was from Nagaland before she eloped to live with her husband in Sonari, Assam, mirrors the male domination over domestic, social and political proceedings. Lulu expressed her dukh (difficulty) in going back to her natal land as she describes the hills, which were once her home, are “inaccessible”. Kikon notes how Lulu’s experience of ethnic exclusion is produced from the masculine and patrilineal framework of political authority and rights over morom (p 49). Most importantly, morom refers to the relationship between the state and the public. Thus, as the reader proceeds, one finds that each chapter opens a way to recollect the myths and legends of the brotherhood ties and conflicts between Assam and Nagaland.

Northeast India has long been seen through the prism of state-led violence and insurgent groups. Military presence and implementation of the Armed Forces Special Power Act of 1958 in a region considered a disturbed area has shaped the region’s social fabric. In one of her chapters, “State Love”, Kikon looks into the “multiple sovereign authorities” of the state, i.e., Assam, Nagaland and India and how people negotiate with those powers in everyday life. Thus, she elaborates on the concept of a “triadic state” (p 67). Through this, the author captures the layers of power relations of state control of movement and ownership of land on the one hand and tribal customary laws and autonomous power on the other.

Kikon’s methodological approach calls for special mention. Memories are used as an important tool in this ethnographic work. Influenced by Geertz’ idea of ‘faction’, which is creative non-fiction, the author unfolds larger socio-political problems through local events and memories. Kikon’s work contributes to North East India scholarship that assume to be the first multi-perspective resource ethnography where oil and coal relationships overlapped with social, spatial and political accounts. With mundane stories of negotiations between the citizens and the state, this rich ethnography brings the oil and coal fields to the reader.

Notwithstanding the richness of details, the author focuses on too many things from understanding love, informal exchanges of labour, gender discrimination, social bonds and relationships, haats to carbon citizenship. This breaks the continuity for the reader, who must jump from one aspect to another while looking for a conclusion to connect the final dots. For example, even though Kikon noted that “the extractive economy is predominantly masculine” (p 128), her discussion on the gendered spaces are limited to small sections within a chapter. It is evident how resource extractions like oil and mining spaces are male-dominated. With environmental changes, statehood or political and economic violence, women belonging to these regions bear the brunt of these industries. One wishes that Kikon’s work could have given a broader picture of women’s significance in the oil and coal fields.

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Pratisha Borborah teaches Sociology at Cotton University, Assam.