In this conversation, Abhishek Hazra speaks to Niyati Dave, curator at Khoj, about the discursive structures that shape collective experiences, and our understanding of the climate crisis. They talk about how the self-reflexive quality of Hazra’s work engages with his inquiry into planetary histories of oxygen, colonial understandings of ‘scientific’ forestry and the changing relationships between land and labor. Looking at histories of scientific thought to understand non-Anglophone,multilingual registers of science, they discuss local hierarchies of power and who gets to speak for whom. In India, where more often than not, power is concentrated along caste and class lines, when we talk about decolonizing science, are we also re-colonizing it to be upper-caste? To unpack this question, this conversation delves into how Hazra’s work plays with the tension between scientific facticity and speculation.
Access the audio file HERE.