Beyond Archival Narratives: An Eco-Spatial Reading of the Fishing Communities of Vypeen, Kerala

This paper demystifies the popular perception that Kerala’s coastal communities have retained their traditional fishing culture (Kerala Tourism Citation2022), often romanticised in digital archives, using Vypeen Island as a case study. While digital archival narratives present harmonious images of cultural continuity, they disregard ecological and socio-economic issues that contour the coastal life. Building on Glen Albrecht’s concept of solastalgia, the paper undertakes an eco-spatial reading of Vypeen Island to explore how neoliberal and ecological factors erode both affective and physical geographies of the island. Insights from archival materials and interviews with fishers suggest a sense of “ecological exile,” a paradoxical feeling of distress and homelessness while still being at home-place. By situating the oral histories of the fishers as counter-narratives against the archival grand-narratives, the paper advocates for an inclusive archival representation, which would preserve, both in the memory and reality, the complex intersection of people, places, and ecologies.