ABSTRACT

Development has been accompanied by displacement most of the time. We need to interrogate both displacement and development. This chapter narrates both displacement and resistance to displacement as in the case of building of Hirakud Dam and construction of National Test Range in Baliapal. It also discusses briefly resistance and Jal Satyagraha against Sardar Sarovar dam. The chapter also invites us to understand how displaced cope with the pain of social and soul suffering of displacement and how they build homes, hearths and habitat in their new places of living. This challenges us to understand the courage, creativity, persistence and thriving quality of the displaced. To make sense of this, I discuss the discourses on dwelling by thinkers, philosophers and anthropologists such as Henry David Thoreau, Martin Heidegger and Tim Ingold. I then discuss issues of ethics, aesthetics and responsibility of development and displacement. I also discuss the art of dwelling creatively in our homes and the world.