Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

This paper explores local perceptions of the landscape in a small highland community near Haa, Bhutan. Through the lens of ethnoecology a storied landscape is revealed in which an animist cosmology, informed by Buddhism, emerges as a component in shaping local subjectivities. We draw on this case to contest Agrawal’s depiction of a singular ‘environmental subject’, outlining multiple environmentalities (neoliberal, disciplinary, sovereign, and truth) and framing these as contributions to subject formation within the broader process of subjectivity. We identify in our case a truth environmentality based on appeals to and belief in a cosmological hierarchy, revealed through a storying of the landscape by the herding community, which motivates specific self-understandings leading to conservation behaviour. This brings our analysis into conversation with literature on both subjectivity and Buddhist ethics as we explore truth subjectivities not yet addressed in the literature.