Epistemic Sovereignty in the Brahmaputra Valley: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge into Multi-Level Governance of Climate and Resource Justice in Assam
Keywords:
Epistemic sovereignty, CARE Principles, Indigenous data sovereignty, decolonial justice, Brahmaputra governance, AssamAbstract
This interdisciplinary study interrogates how centering epistemic sovereignty Indigenous communities’ authority over their knowledge systems can reconfigure climate governance in Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley. Facing rising flood threats and cross-border hydro political conflict, Mising and Dimasa peoples are also poorly represented on policy for a despite their advanced socio-ecological knowledge: Mising stilt houses (chang ghar), community-based embankment management, and phenological predictions reported among Indigenous populations in Assam (e.g., Sonowal Kachari, Bodo). Political ecology and decolonial theories help us diagnose institutional obstacles to incorporating Indigenous relational/living waters ontologies into state tools such as the Climate Action Plan (SAPCC) in Assam. We propose co-governed knowledge-bridging institutions, operationalizing data sovereignty via CARE Principles and UNDRIP compliance to advance resource justice through decolonial governance praxis.
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