Shorelines: Space and Rights in South India

After a clerical sanction prohibited them from fishing for a week, a group of Catholic fishers from a village on India's southwestern coast took their church to court. They called on the state to recognize them as custodians of the local sea, protect their right to regulate trawling, and reject the church's intermediary role.

In Shorelines, Ajantha Subramanian argues that their struggle requires a rethinking of Indian democracy, citizenship, and environmentalism. Rather than see these fisher...