Eco-Colonialism and the Subversion of Indigenous Space in G. N. Devy’s A Nomad Called Thief

Abstract

Existing scholarship on Adivasi marginalisation has examined criminalisation, forest governance, linguistic exclusion, mobility, and development-induced dispossession, but their interconnected spatial effects remain insufficiently explored. This article argues that these processes collectively regulate who may move, remain, work, know, and belong within indigenous space. It employs qualitative textual analysis and thematic close reading of G. N. Devy’s A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections on Adivasi Silence, read alongside scholarship on postcolonial representation, indigenous spatiality, denotified communities, forest relations, and development-induced dispossession. Its innovation lies in conceptualising eco-colonialism as a spatial process linking classification, environmental regulation, epistemic marginalisation, and territorial reorganisation. The article further proposes “spatial legitimacy” to examine authority over indigenous space. The analysis concludes that Devy’s text presents dispossession as restriction of recognised rights to movement, livelihood, knowledge, memory, and belonging.