Who wants a ‘development’ that doesn’t recognise alternatives?: Working with and against postdevelopment in Jagatsinghpur, India

Jagatsinghpur, a district in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, has attracted media attention for a lengthy fight over land between a community of betel-farmers, fisher folk and livestock herders on one side, and the state and state-patronised corporations seeking to build a steel plant, port and captive power plant on the other. The struggle has lasted over a decade amidst reports of killings, arrests and gross human rights violations. In 2017, after 12 years, Korean steel giant POSCO withdrew, only to be replaced by Indian corporations seeking the same land. In this chapter, we examine the anti-POSCO People’s Movement (POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti) as an example of postdevelopment in practice. The movement’s anti-corporate stance, and its defence of a sustainable and dignified land-based livelihood and the right to self-governance, align with key tenets of postdevelopment. However, in other areas the movement’s stance is more aligned with a traditional development paradigm, including a desire for markets for petty commodities, and belief in the state as the inevitable, appropriate site of self-governance, as an agent of development. We conclude that to work towards a pluriverse, we must attend to aspirations that entail tensions between postdevelopment and more traditional development principles.