CALL FOR PAPERS

Eco-Bordering and Green Nationalism: Spatial Transformations in the South Asian Diaspora

Guest Editors:

Dr. Mansi Bose, Assistant Professor, Chandigarh University, India

&

Dr. Pratyusha Pramanik, Assistant Professor, Chandigarh University, India

Rationale

This special issue examines the process of ecobordering, a practice in which immigration control is re-articulated as a key instrument in environmental protection. Ecobordering draws upon the theoretical bases outlined in the research by Turner and Bailey (2022) on far-right politics in Europe, in which migrants, primarily from the Global South, are constructed as the key agents of ecological destruction, thereby reinforcing the border as a green defence. It focuses on the cultural geography of borders, outlining the mechanisms by which borders are inscribed upon the landscape as ecological borders. It seeks to explore how national spaces are being re-conceptualised not only as political boundaries on a map, but also as ecologically bounded spaces that are being threatened by “invasive” human flows (Turner & Bailey 122). The spokesperson of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jordan Bardella, declared in April 2019, “borders are the environment’s greatest ally... it is through them that we will save the planet” (France24 2019). In this process, this special issue also maps the spatial politics of the contemporary period marked by climate volatility, in which environmental discourses increasingly serve as legitimacy for territorial exclusion. Through a tradition of cultural geography, this issue treats these green walls as spaces where power, identity, and nature are being co-produced, particularly in regions such as the Sundarbans mangrove delta, where Bangladeshi migrants are being displaced by the impacts of climate change, only to encounter border walls that discursively position them as a threat to pristine wetland ecosystems; the Cox’s Bazar hills in Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees are being displaced from settlements that are being cleared as a justification for repatriation policies; and the ecologically sensitive border regions between India and China, between India and Nepal, and between India and Bhutan, where glacier melts, flash floods, and downstream migration are being justified through the militarisation of borders that discursively position them as necessary for biodiversity conservation in the fragile Himalayan ecosystem.

This spatial interrogation directly engages—and critically extends—two emerging theoretical strands. First, Asis Mistry (2020) posits green nationalism as a novel paradigm for environmental governance and climate justice, one that harnesses nationalistic sentiments to drive proactive policies (e.g., India’s National Solar Mission framed as energy self-sufficiency). Yet, this same fusion, when spatialised at borders, morphs into ecobordering. Second, Imogen Richards (2025) analyses far-right "green nationalism" through Jacques Rancière’s concepts of dissensus (the disruption of consensual perceptions of the sensible order) and denormalisation (aesthetic-political practices that expose and destabilise normalised hierarchies). Richards shows how European far-right actors exploit post-truth distrust to attribute ecological crises to migration and overpopulation, romanticising pre-industrial, racially homogeneous landscapes while de-normalising climate expertise—thereby interrupting historical continuity to justify exclusionary agendas. The issue extends Richards’ Eurocentric analysis into South Asian borderlands, demonstrating how dissensus and denormalisation operate spatially: migrants are rendered out of place in curated pristine ecologies, turning Green Nationalism’s generative potential into a mechanism of nativist re-bordering.

Nature of the Contribution

The main contribution of this special issue is in the conceptualisation of “nativist stewardship” and “the making of exclusionary landscapes” (Turner and Bailey 110). It is an extension of Turner and Bailey’s 2022) framework, but it also engages with foundational concepts of cultural geography, including Denis Cosgrove’s (1984) conceptualisation of “landscape as a way of seeing”—a historical and visual/ideological construct for appropriating and ordering the world (1). The articles expected to be included in this special issue analyse the “migrant-as-environmental-vandal” trope, which portrays native people as the sole custodians of the land and heritage and migrants as agents of the exploitation of the land without any ecological or emotional relation to the land (Turner & Bailey 120). This narrative is also shown to produce an aesthetic of pristine nature, which legitimises the marginalisation or displacement of certain groups. The climate migrants of Bangladesh are portrayed as plunderers of protected mangroves, rather than victims of ecological collapse, which is partly their making due to the damming of rivers and global climate change. Among Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, environmental degradation, like deforestation and soil erosion, is also framed in a manner that positions refugees as ecological burdens, much like poor stewardship was framed during colonial times. In the Himalayas, biological heritage is conflated with national security, so border areas are eco-sensitive zones that are vulnerable to cross-border migrations, which are portrayed as a threat to delicate glacial ecosystems and water security.

By foregrounding these spatial-cultural processes across South Asian and comparative contexts, the collection is expected to fill a gap in existing scholarship. It moves beyond Mistry’s (2020) more optimistic hypotheses that green nationalism can significantly boost climate-policy commitment and domestic consensus—and beyond Richards’ (2025) account of European dissensus—to reveal how the “green border” operates as a site of violent fusion between ecology, nationhood, and belonging. Where Richards demonstrates far-right denormalisation of expertise to promote ethnonationalist rootedness, this issue shows its concrete spatial translation: the very same aesthetic-political interruption that appears to challenge capitalist orthodoxy actually reinforces exclusionary landscapes, producing the environmental inequities Mistry himself flags as a risk when international cooperation is absent.

Scope and Suggested Themes

We invite original research articles that interrogate the cultural politics of ecology, territory, and belonging. Contributions should engage with the interface between environmental narratives and practices of territorial sovereignty in South Asian and diasporic contexts.

Suggested (but not exhaustive) themes include:

· Landscape as a Way of Seeing: Critical analyses of how pristine or vulnerable nature is visually and ideologically constructed in contested border zones.

· The Migrant as Environmental Threat: Deconstruction of tropes that frame climate-displaced populations as ecological burdens or invasive agents.

· Performative Conservation: Examination of how border security practices, including military patrols and surveillance, are legitimized as environmental protection in ecologically sensitive areas.

· Green Nationalism and Aesthetic Politics: Application of dissensus and aesthetic-political frameworks to understand how “green” national identities are co-constituted with exclusionary bordering in South Asia.

· Spatial Practices of the Displaced: Ethnographic, oral-historical, and geographical accounts of everyday resistance and adaptation by communities in riverine settlements, refugee camps, and high-altitude borderlands.

· Militarized Eco-zones: Analysis of how environmental changes—such as glacial retreat and intensified flooding—drive the discursive and material securitization of India’s borders with other South Asian countries.

Submission Guidelines

This call is for a proposed special issue in a Scopus Q1 journal published by Taylor and Francis. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee eventual publication; the special issue, along with all full manuscripts, will be subject to final approval by the journal’s editorial board and a standard double-blind peer-review process.

Abstract Submission: Please submit an abstract of 300–350 words along with a short biographical note (approximately 100 words) to specialissuehumanities@gmail.com

·       Last date for Abstract Submission: 30th April 2026.

·       Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 15th May 2026

·       Full Manuscript Submission Deadline: 31st September 2026

More details on the submissions of full papers can be checked onhttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rjcg20

We look forward to receiving contributions that advance critical understandings of the cultural geographies of eco-bordering and green nationalism in South Asian and diasporic contexts.