Extractivism, Epistemicide: Reconfiguring Adivasi Lifeworlds in Sheela Tomy’s Valli

Abstract

This research paper investigates Sheela Tomy’s Valli (2019), which depicts five decades of ecological destruction and social injustice in Wayanad, Kerala. The novel portrays how the bonded labor of the Paniya, an indigenous Adivasi community under the Vallippani system, the relentless clearing of forests for timber extraction, plantation, agriculture, and tourism, and the gradual disappearance of the scriptless Paniya gothrabhasha are interconnected forms of violence rather than separate historical events. This paper examines Valli through the theoretical perspective of extractivism and epistemicide. Extractivism explains how forests, labor, and indigenous cultures are transformed into economic resources, while Boaventura de Sousa Santos's concept of epistemicide reveals the systematic erasure of indigenous knowledge embedded in language, oral traditions, and ecological practices. The study also analyses Wayanad's natural loss and resists indigenous cultural erasure. It represents Adivasi communities not as victims but as resilient agents whose cultural memory, indigenous ecological knowledge, and collective resistance.