Sustainable Development Needs a Planetary Health Pivot: Historical and Ethnographic Evidence from Kerala, India

Debates on sustainable development have foregrounded respecting the resource rights of future generations. Yet, from a political sociology perspective, these discussions have not adequately theorised the differing historical injustice that different communities bear as a result of human interventions into ecology. Using an integrated framework that combines political sociology and planetary health and that is attuned to social stratifications, this paper argues that state interventions in sustainability need to pay heed to the long history of differential impacts faced by various communities. Planetary health highlights the interrelatedness of the planet’s health and human health, first proposed in a Lancet – Rockefeller Foundation report of 2014. Taking this concept beyond its current narrow rational-scientific approach, the paper underlines the importance of considering social stratifications. The paper builds on empirical evidence from Attappadi in the state of Kerala, India, which has seen numerous state interventions in the 'eco-restoration' of a degraded landscape. The impacts of these interventions on the local Adivasi (indigenous) communities show that their health is closely linked to state and settler interventions in Attappadi's ecology. This includes not only physical health but also a subjective understanding of wellbeing. The starvation deaths faced by the Adivasis is often treated solely as a medical issue, needing more investment in medical facilities. A long-term historical approach reveals that decades of settler and state intervention in the landscape that resulted in land alienation of the tribes and destruction of traditional farming have together resulted in today's starvation deaths. The analysis calls for a conversation between the fields of sustainability, planetary health and political sociology.