THE SOAS ELEPHANT CONFERENCE
DATE: Monday 4 to Wednesday 6 April 2016
VENUE: Centre
for Ecological Studies, Indian Institute of Science (IISc),
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
Prospectus: Our first Elephant Conference was held
in
For the conference we brought together an
international panel of researchers working on all aspects of elephant culture,
past, present and future and in all continents. The conference dealt with both
material and cultural concerns, and covered both the Indian and the African
elephant.
The abstracts, audio files and full
versions of the Bangalore 2016 papers are presented on this site.
We are also preparing to publish the Book
of Proceedings.
All inquiries about this conference and
about future conferences should be addressed to the conference organiser:
E-mail: [email protected]
This conference builds on previous
conferencing activities organised by ourselves at the
The outcome of our work has been the
establishment of vibrant international research networks, with programmes of
ongoing work. [See web-links at the end of this document.]
We are happy that our research activities
will now be extended to include elephant studies – not least because, along
with the camel, the elephant features prominently in the coat of arms of our
School.
William Clarence-Smith [SOAS,
Conference
Chair
Ed Emery [SOAS,
Conference Organiser
_________________________________________________________________
List of speakers, with abstracts and papers
[in alphabetical order of
principal presenters]
Click here for links to audio /
video files of papers
________________________________________________________________
1. On the
deification of Guruvayur Kesavan:
Making of an animal religious subject through cultural productions
Tresa Abraham (IIT
Bombay) [Abstract]
[Download
PDF of paper]
2. Trunk Calls in Antiquity
Shibani Bose [Department of History,
3. Cultural aberrations in the management
of captive elephants
Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation,
4. Elephants in Islamic history
William G. Clarence-Smith [SOAS,
5. Contribution of comparative genetics to
the understanding of the evolution and distribution of elephants
Régis Debruyne
[Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris] [Abstract] [Download PDF of paper]
6. Imagining the inner life of the Asian
elephant in
Rachel Dwyer [SOAS,
7. The Elephant in
Ed Emery [SOAS,
8. Elephant trade in Sonepur:
Illegal wildlife trade under the guise of tradition?
Shubhobroto Ghosh [TRAFFIC
9. Elephants in modern
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi [James Madison University (USA)] [Abstract] [Download
PDF of paper]
10. Wildlife Crime, legal prosecution and
experience in combatting Wildlife Crime in the
illegal trade of elephant calves in
Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando [Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES),
11. The intertwined
and co-shaped pathways of elephants and humans in the forests of Assam,
Paul G. Keil [
Nicolas Lainé [Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France (
[Link to Audio file]
13. Elephant training in
Piers Locke [
14.
The journeys of elephants: An Indian circus trail
Nisha P R [Department of History,
15. What a spectacle: Touring elephants
and scientific investigation in the early Royal Society
Florencia Pierri [
16. Elephant ecology and the emergence of
the state in Great Lakes
Andrew Reid [
17. Elephants on board the
Ana Ruiz Gutiérrez
[
18. Corruption in the Keddah:
Elephants, fraud and environmental history in colonial
Jonathan Saha [
19. Elephants, zamindars
and state: History of contested hunting rights in
Arupjyoti Saikia [Indian
20. Topsy, an elephant we must
never forget
Kim Stallwood
[Independent scholar] [Abstract]
[Via video] [Download
PDF of paper]
21. Knowledge of the elephant since
ancient times
Raman Sukumar [Centre
for Ecological Studies, IISc,
22. "A sense of place": finding
a balance between African elephant and large trees in the savanna
Maria Thaker, Abi Tamim Vanak,
Rob Slotow
[Indian Institute of Science; Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment;
and
[Abstract] [Download PDF of paper]
23. Local Celebrities – Stories of
elephant personalities in the Gudalur Region of the Nilgiris,
Tarsh Thekaekara [Shola Trust, Nilgiris and Open
University] [Abstract]
[Download
PDF of paper]
24. Shooting an elephant
Thomas R. Trautmann
[
25. Fencing in the megaherbivore
Abi Tamin Vanak, Maria Thaker and Rob Slotow [Ashoka Trust for Research
in Ecology and the Environment; Indian Institute of Science;
26. In God's own country: Elephants as
religious and cultural icons, and as celebrities
Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan
and Anindya Sinha [Indian Institute of
Science,
___________________________________________________________________
ABSTRACTS AND LINKS TO AUDIO FILES
___________________________________________________________________
Tresa Abraham [IIT
Abstract: Animals play a significant role in Hindu religious tradition.
They are venerated as they are the escorts or companions of various deities.
The elephant enjoys a place of privilege as it is the vehicle of Lord Indira and as Ganesha, the
anthropomorphic God, has an elephant head. In the dominant Hindu culture of
Kerala, it is customary for elephants to participate in temple festivals. Most
domestic elephants in the state are owned by temple authorities. Famous
elephants that served temples include Kandakoran of Kitangoor, Neelakantan of Panthalam, Guruvayur Padmanabhan, Guruvayur Kesavan, Gajarani Lakshmi etc.
In 1973, for the first time in history,
the Guruvayur Devaswom
Board conferred upon a tusker, Kesavan, the honour of Gajarajan (King of
Elephants) and celebrated the golden jubilee of the services rendered by the
elephant to the temple. On his death, to commemorate him a 12 feet high statue was
erected. Deification is the process through which a person, animal or thing is
raised to the status of a deity. In this paper I attempt to read the cultural
productions around Guruvayur Kesavan
in the form of film, TV serials, features etc. to study discursive practices
that lead to the deification of the elephant.
CV: Tresa Abraham completed her M.Phil
in English from the University of Hyderabad, India in
2014. She is currently doing her doctoral research on 'Taxidermy in
E-mail: [email protected]
______________________________
Shibani Bose [Department of History,
[Download PDF of paper]
Since antiquity, elephants have inspired
awe, wonder and curiosity, impressing themselves upon
the imagination of the people coming in contact with them and firing the
inventive genius of storytellers. As an animal that has amazed as much as it
has terrified, the pachyderm has pervaded the human past as well as its present
through art, legend, literature and religion.
Despite having enthralled as well as
challenged humans across millennia, it would serve us well to remember that the
importance of these mega mammals is not merely cultural. We need to expand the
lens to look beyond their magnitude and magnificence and be sensitive to their
importance as markers of ecology. The fact that
CV: I
have an MPhil and a PhD from the Department of
History,
Publications include: 'Human-Plant
Interactions in the Middle Gangetic Plains (From the
Mesolithic up to circa 3rd century BC): An Archaeobotanical
Perspective' in Ancient India: New Research, Upinder
Singh and Nayanjot Lahiri,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009 and 'From Eminence to Near-Extinction:
The Journey Of the Greater One-Horned Rhino' in Shifting Ground: People,
Animals, and Mobility in India's Environmental History, ed. M. Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014.
In the past, I have taught at Miranda
House,
E-mail: [email protected]
_____________________
Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation,
Abstract: All methods used in the management of elephants in captivity
originate from traditional practices developed in
Since the 1970's, the management methods
used for elephants in the West became incompatible with the development of
Animal Rights principles in North America and
Ironically, these so-called new methods
are now progressively imposed into the elephant home range countries by Animal
Rights organizations with the effects of discrediting the traditional methods
and compromising genuine long-term solutions for the conservation of elephants.
The proposed paper will address the contradictions
between cultural views on the management of elephants and the reality in the
field.
CV: Prajna Chowta was born in 1970 in
In 2000, she created the Aane Mane Foundation and researched the migration of wild
elephants between
She published the Elephant Code Book
(2010) on captive elephant management with the Asian Nature Conservation
Foundation and the Ministry of Environment (
In 2014, she released the book Enfant d'Elephant with Elytis Editions in
Website: www.aanemane.org
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________
William G. Clarence-Smith [SOAS,
Abstract: Islamic attitudes towards elephants have been quite
contradictory, varying in terms of space, time, previous cultures, and
religious evolution. Sura 105 of the Qur'an, 'al-fîl' (the elephants, from Persian pîl),
tells how divine intervention frustrated the 'people of the elephants,'
probably meaning Yemeni Christians. Over time, sharia
law forbade the eating of elephant meat, hindering Islamisation
in parts of Animist Africa and
CV:
William Gervase Clarence-Smith is Professor of the
Economic History of Asia and Africa at SOAS,
E-mail: [email protected]
____________________________
Regis Debruyne
[Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris]
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: The study of the genetic diversity can provide key arguments to
the understanding of the evolution of elephants. Fixed mutations and
polymorphisms both embody signatures of historical events at different time
scales. Provided the right tools and models are used, the analysis of the
amount of within diversity and the extent of molecular divergence between
modern elephant groups help us to retrace their genealogy and their demography
through hundreds of thousand years.
This paper will review the developments in
comparative genetics of the elephants since the early 2000's. It will contrast
the available results obtained from the analysis of the mitochondrial genome
and the nuclear genome in each lineage and discuss why their apparently
conflicting signals might only reflect the difference in the mechanisms of
heredity involved.
I will discuss how only a synergic
approach of all genomic information can provide a better understanding of the
origin of the current distribution of the diversity among Asian elephants. This
strategy should serve as an auxiliary tool in establishing conservation
management policies relevant to limit the deleterious effects of inbreeding and
maximize the evolutionary potential of the remnant populations of elephants in
CV:
Regis Debruyne is a research engineer in genomics and
paleogenetics at the National Museum of Natural
History (MNHN,
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________________
Rachel Dwyer [SOAS]
Abstract: While there has been major scientific research on elephants (Moss
2011, Sukumar 1993) and studies in the humanities
have produced works on the elephant in Indian culture (including Sukumar 2011 and Trautmann 2015),
little has been written about the way in which elephants are often understood
as having thoughts, feelings, and other mental states. I examine these ways of imagining the inner
life of the Asian elephant in India across a variety of texts including
Sanskrit treatises (Gajashastra, e.g. the Matangalila), English novels (The tusk that did the
damage), Indian films (including Haathi mere saathi, Gajakesari, Kumki), media reports on the elephants of the Dasara festival, as well as by people who work with captive
elephants such as wildlife charities. Are these just fantasies which seek to anthropomorphise the elephant or are they ways of trying to
understand the elephant as a subjective being?
In what ways might these texts be helpful in trying to breach or
communicate across the divide between the human and the non-human? Do they seek to benefit the elephant or do
they misunderstand the nature of the elephant and the relation of the wild to
the captive? How do these understandings
fit into wider Indian cultural understandings of what it is
to be an animal and a human – or even a god?
E-mail: [email protected]
_________________________
Ed Emery [SOAS,
Abstract: The elephant in the English imaginary from
Roman times to the present. Means of warfare; bearer of allegory; giftings of royalty; anatomical paradox; democratisation as spectacle; imperial killing fields;
protective regimes. The elephant as a means by which we come
to know ourselves.
CV: Ed Emery is organiser
of the following conferences, among others: the Hydra Mule and Donkey
Conference; the SOAS Camel Conference; the SOAS War Horses Conference; and the SOAS
Elephant Conference. His PhD (pending) is on the Arabic and Hebrew dance songs
of al-Andalus [muwashshah and zajal]
1100-1350, and their possible overlaps into the musics of Early Europe. He is a
Research Associate of the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at SOAS.
E-mail: [email protected]
_________________________
Presenter: Shubhobroto
Ghosh [TRAFFIC
Investigators
: Shekhar Niraj, Head TRAFFIC
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: Harihar Kshetra, or Sonepur Mela is held during the
occasion of Kartick Purnima
(Full Moon) every year. The fair that is attributed to the times of Emperor
Chandragupta Maurya, is famous for its elephants that
are adorned, displayed and traded. This annual conglomeration however has an
essence of illegal wildlife trade and flagrant violation of the Wildlife
Protection Act, 1972. TRAFFIC has been monitoring the Sonepur
fair for the past fifteen years and has consistently been assisting enforcement
officials and lawmakers in various ways to resolve the matter of the illegal
nature of this trade. There are individual elephants of all denominations that
are exhibited and sold in Sonepur, including tuskers
and calves.
Many of these animals are sold without
proper permits and are brought illegally from other states, including
1. To assess the impact of the illegal
live elephant trade at Sonepur on elephant
conservation
2. To assess the use of elephants by
private people
3. Expose weaknesses in implementation of
the law
4. To show ambiguity in laws
5. To make suggestions for tightening law
enforcement by ensuring long term conservation
6. Find linkages of illegal live elephant
trade to transborder regions
CV: Shubhobroto Ghosh is a former
journalist with the Telegraph newspaper whose work has also been published in The
Statesman, New York Times, The Hindu, Montreal Serai, Sanctuary Asia and Nature India
online. He is the former coordinator of the Indian Zoo Inquiry project sponsored
by Zoocheck
E-mail: [email protected]
___________________
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi [
Abstract: This paper surveys a fast-moving elephantine history in
CV:
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi is an
Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian History at
http://www.jmu.edu/history/people/all-people/Hanifi.shtml
E-mail: [email protected]
_____________________________
Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando [Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES),
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: The capture of Asian elephants (Elephas
maximus maximus) – a
sub-species, found in
The ongoing investigations have revealed
that the majority of elephant calves captured and held illegally for the
purpose of commercial uses for the tourism trade, in an "organized"
wildlife criminal network, includes its captors, traders, wildlife officials of
the State, legal personnel, monks, businessmen, politicians and forest and
local communities, among others. The intervention of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and interested individuals responsible for the
investigation have succeeded in exposing and advocating forlegal
action by the relevant authorities. It involves 99% control in illegal capture
of elephant calves from the wild since then, including bringing criminals
before the courts. Approximately 65 calves identified as having been illegally
registered involving forged documentation have thus, been held illegally. It is
further believed that over 80 calves under the age of 4 years were captured
from their herds in the wild, with 99% of them being from Protected Areas (PA)
and their environs, including wildlife National Parks.
CV: Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando serve as co-founderDirectors
of the Centre for Eco-Cultural Studies (CES). CES is a research-based training institute located in Diyakapilla, Sigiriya, in central
Sentinels Against
Wildlife Crime,
Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES)
P O Box 03,
Diyakapilla, Sri Lanka
E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]
_____________________________
Paul G. Keil [
Abstract: Paths enable easier movement throughout our environment whilst
constraining and guiding our trajectories. They are traces of relationships
with places, carved into the landscape by the footsteps of those before us. In
the hills nearby to Chakardo village,
CV:
Paul Keil is a PhD Candidate in social anthropology,
from
E-mail: [email protected]
_____________________________
Nicolas Lainé
[Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France (Paris)]
[Download PDF
of paper presented in London on 20 November 2016]
[Link to Audio file]
Abstract: The training of the animal is a crucial
period within human-elephant interspecies community. It is the time when man
and animal get to know each other, define modalities and forms of
communication, and create a common intelligible world which will be used in
their future interactions. This initial contact is also crucial in the
development of attachment and bonding: their long term partnerships will evolve
on the basis of this primary encounter.
In
This chapter purposes to explore the various functions
(pedagogical, communicative and social) of chants during elephant training, by
studying their contents (their lyrics, forms and rhythms). The analysis will
support the argument that, primarily used as an
intangible tool for training elephants, music is constitutive of the
interspecies community. Sung on various occasions after training, chants are
also part of the vocal communication used by the Khamtis
to interact with animals in their long partnership.
CV:
Nicolas Lainé holds a PhD in Ethnology from the
Personal webpage : http://las.ehess.fr/index.php?2334
Academia : https://college-de-france.academia.edu/NicolasLaine
E-mail: [email protected]
________________________
Piers Locke [
Abstract: Focussing on fieldwork at the Khorsor Elephant Breeding Centre,
Here, I apply this more-than-human/not-just
animal perspective to elephant training practices for captive-bred juvenile
elephants, which adapt methods traditionally developed for captured adults. I
analyze training not just as an assemblage of practical procedures for imparting
obedience, understanding, and interspecies cooperation, but also as a ritual
process of transformation, by which both elephant and mahout establish working
relations, acquire new capabilities, as well as a changed status and identity
among their human and nonhuman peers. In so doing, I extend the anthropological
theory of rites of passage to include non-human actors, supporting an emerging,
more-than-human literature that emphasizes the mutual agency, historical
entanglement, and negotiated relations of humans and elephants whose lives and
landscapes intersect.
CV:
Piers Locke is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Piers has been conducting
ethnographic fieldwork on captive elephant management in Chitwan,
Nepal since 2001, exploring interspecies intimacy and custodial labour in
biodiversity conservation, protected area management, and ecotourism. He has
sought to theorize human-elephant relations more broadly, bringing to bear
developments in posthumanism and multispecies studies
to argue for a new kind of integrated, interdisciplinary approach called ethnoelephantology. He co-produced an ethnographic
documentary about elephant training in the Khorsor
Breeding Centre, Nepal called Servants of Ganesh, he
is currently editing a volume titled Rethinking Human-Elephant Relations,
and working on a monograph about his research in Nepal. His latest project
concerns the historical photography of human-elephant relations in colonial
E-mail: [email protected]
________________________
Nisha P R [Department of History,
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: Like the poignant journey of Solomon the
elephant in Jose Saramago's wonderful novel, title of
which is recast above in plural, I hope to chronicle some significant
historical moments from the trails and travails of Indian circus elephants.
Animals in circus brings to the fore a long tradition of animal trade, taming,
training, and human accompaniment, raising significant questions regarding
their acquisition, captive life, breeding and changing relation to forests and
wilderness over the periods. They are inextricably linked with a colonial
genealogy of the 'exotic' and 'exhibit', especially a flagship being like the
elephant.
Elephants do figure prominently in the
wildlife policy of the nation as is evident from the project elephant (1992)
and the Elephant Task Force (2010). In fact Asian elephant is the official
symbol of
CV: Nisha P R has recently submitted her doctoral thesis,
"A History of Circus and Circus Performances in Twentieth Century
Kerala" at the Department of History,
E-mail: [email protected]
__________________________
Florencia Pierri [
Abstract: In 1681, an elephant died in a conflagration in
CV:
Ph.D. candidate,
Talks given:
Harvard-Princeton
Early Modern Graduate Conference, "'A beast whose scales are as
Armor", 2013.
Renaissance
Society of
Harvard-Princeton Early Modern Graduate
Conference, "An Elephant Accidentally Burnt in
Renaissance
Society of
E-mail: [email protected]
____________________________
Andrew Reid [
Abstract: When European travellers first visited
Great Lakes Africa in the later part of the nineteenth century they found a
belligerent attitude to the large elephant populations of the region, fuelled
by the ivory trade and by the political need to protect cultivation from
elephant attack. During the days of the Uganda Protectorate in the twentieth
century, this contestation between declining elephant and expanding human
populations continued until widespread poaching began in the late 1960s. The
removal of elephant populations has had ecological consequences for areas that
were previously renowned for their suitability for cattle-rearing. It is in
these areas that the earliest traces of political centralisation are found,
particularly associated with large cattle herds, beginning around AD 1000. It
is highly likely that these herds would not have been sustainable without the
ecological impact of elephants. They controlled bush encroachment, suppressing
the threat of trypanosomiasis. Elephants would also
have sponsored the regeneration of pasture and the exposure of salt sources,
both of which are essential for cattle populations today. It is therefore
likely that human-elephant relationships were significantly better in the
distant past and that the impact of elephants may have been crucial to the
emergence of states.
CV:
Andrew Reid is currently a senior lecturer at the
E-mail: [email protected]
____________________________
Ana Ruiz Gutiérrez
[
Abstract: Between 1565 and 1815 the Manila galleon trade route ("Galeón de Manila") initiated a series of exchanges
between the
CV:
Graduate in Art History (UGR, 1998), Phd. in Art History (UGR, 2004).
Best Phd Thesis Award for "El tráfico artístico entre España y Filipinas (1565-1815)"(UGR,
2014). Postgraduate in International Projects of Cultural
Cooperation (180 hours), (UB, 2001).
University Master in Cultural Management (540 hours), (US,2005). Postgraduate in Chinese
Culture and Society (500 hours), (UAH, 2008).
Professor and Researcher at the
E-mail: [email protected]
____________________________
Jonathan Saha [
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: In 1904 the Government of India transferred all
of its elephant capturing operations to the
CV: I
am a University Academic Fellow at the
E-mail: [email protected]
________________________________
Arupjyoti Saikia [Indian
Institute of Technology Guwahati]
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: Throughout the imperial rule the zamindars
of Goalpara and the government locked horns over the
rights of elephant hunting. The imperial government staked claim to the
monopoly right in elephant capturing since the middle of the 19th century. This
also led to a prolonged dispute over absolute property rights over the big
animal. Zamindars considered elephants both as a
source of earning as well as a marker of their territorial authority. In one
such instance, the zamindars of Karaibari
estate fought a protracted legal battle against the government and refused to
surrender their traditional rights to hunt and capture elephants. The
government finally dismissed the claims of the zamindars
but not before leaving behind rich details of a fiercely contested legal
dispute.
This paper is divided into three parts.
The first part introduces a complex landscape where elephants found a place to
live in. The second part discusses the contested history of hunting and
capturing of elephants in this region since the Mughal
times. The third part, drawing on the rich details of the Karaibari
case, discusses the complex negotiations through which Goalpara
zamindars laid their claim of exclusive rights to
hunt and own elephants. This section also discusses the interplay of
governance, environment and tradition which shaped the fate of big animals in
colonial times.
CV: Arupjyoti Saikia is Associate
Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian
Institute of Technology Guwahati and teaches history
there. He holds the Suryya Kumar Bhuyan
Endowment Chair on Assam History at IIT Guwahati. He is also a visiting professor to the
He has published in Journal of Peasant
Studies, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Studies in History, Indian
Historical Review, Conservation and Society, Economic and Political Weekly. His
published works include a) A Century of Protests: Peasant Politics in
E-mail: [email protected]
____________________
Kim Stallwood [Independent
scholar]
Abstract: An Asian elephant called Topsy, aged about
28, was electrocuted in front of 1,500 spectators by Thomas Edison in New York
on 4 January 4 1903. Her life represents the treatment of animals exploited by
the entertainment industry and symbolises
CV: Kim Stallwood
is an independent scholar and author on animal rights. He has forty years of
personal commitment and professional experience in leadership positions with
some of the world's foremost animal advocacy organisations in the
Website: www.kimstallwood.com
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________________
Raman Sukumar
[Centre for Ecological Studies, IISc,
Abstract: Ever since the elephant was tamed in the Indian
subcontinent more than four millennia ago, it entered into a special
relationship with people that has persisted until
modern times. Knowledge of the elephant was first depicted in art, passed on
through oral traditions and recorded in several texts since ancient times. The
Vedas, the two great Epics, the Greek texts, the Jatakas and other Buddhist
sources, the Sangam poetry, Palakapya’s
Gajashastra
or Hastyayurveda,
the Kautilya Arthashastra, the Manasollasa, the Hastividyarnava, the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari provide rich sources of information on the
elephant, before the advent of the colonial period.
These ancient sources deal with the status and distribution of elephants,
their behaviour, ecology, diet, anatomy and physiology, growth and development,
psychology, conflicts with people, diseases and their treatment, management in
captivity, and deployment in war. Some of these observations such as those of musth in bull elephants are remarkably accurate, and
clearly preceded modern-day biology by at least one thousand years. We can also
make interesting inferences about changes in elephant habitat from comparisons
of texts such as the Arthashastra
and the Manasollasa
from different historical time periods.
Much of the ancient knowledge of the elephant stemmed from a practical
need to maintain elephants in captivity, and train and deploy them in large
numbers in the battlefield; thus these aspects are covered in depth in texts
such as the Hastyarurveda
and Hastividyarnava.
During the colonial period, the development of European veterinary science
contributed to the advancement of the science of the elephant, drawing upon
both ancient knowledge and modern biology, the motivation coming from the need
to maintain elephants for logging the rich tropical forests of
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________________
Presenter: Maria Thaker
Authors: Maria Thaker
(1), Abi Tamim Vanak (2), Rob Slotow (3)
Indian
Abstract: Environmental protection typically is driven by a balance of
conservation goals and economic development. But neither of these drivers is
static in space or time, making environmental management a particularly
difficult challenge. Much of the difficulty stems from the fact that conservation
ideals are based on the memory of local people. Whether we restore the
environment to what was seen generations ago or maintain what we have today is
hotly debated worldwide. The construct of a "sense of place" aims to
understand the importance of local memory and personal values in defining the
identity of a place. Using Kruger National Park (KNP),
CVs: Pending
(1) Indian Institute of Science; (2) Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment;
(3)
E-mails:
_______________________________
Tarsh Thekaekara [Shola Trust, Nilgiris and Open
University]
Abstract:
Over the course of the last year, we have
been working with local communities and forest department field staff in the Nilgiris, to get them to identify and relate to individual
elephants rather than the species has a whole. We developed the relevant
training material to identify individuals based on physical characteristics,
but found local people already have intimate knowledge of some of the
charismatic elephants that are well known in the region. I present some of
these stories of individual elephant personalities, and discuss the wider
implication of this work for elephant ethnographies.
CV: I
have been working with The Shola Trust for the last 8
years, mostly at the interface of people and wildlife. I have been more
actively interested in and studying the human-elephant interactions for the
last five years. I am currently enrolled in a part time PhD programme at the
British Open University, focussing on the plurality
in interactions between wild elephants and people. I have an undergraduate
degree in physics and a masters degree in
biodiversity, conservation and management.
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________________
Thomas R. Trautmann
[
Abstract: Elephants differ from other domestic animals in that they are
captured as wild adults, one by one through the ages, and then trained for work.
For this reason Indian kings using war elephants need wild elephants and
forests as a military store. Kings were enjoined from killing elephants except
those of the enemy in battle; they acted to protect wild elephants from killing
by others; and hunted them to capture and train them, not to kill them for
sport. Shooting an elephant was rare, except to kill a domestic elephant on a
rampage and threatening human life, such stories being the true precedent for
George Orwell's famous essay. This pattern was adopted by Turkish and Mughal rulers, and by the British East India Company, until
the early nineteenth century, whereupon a mighty slaughter for sport hunting
commenced, which came under government curbs before the end of the century.
Though much diminished, the population of wild Asian elephants in
CV:
Thomas R. Trautmann is Professor Emeritus of History
and Anthropology of the
E-mail: [email protected]
_______________________________
Presenter: Abi Tamim Vanak
Authors: Abi Tamin Vanak, Maria Thaker and Rob Slotow [Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment;
Indian Institute of Science;
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: Conservation of a megaherbivore, such as
the African and Asian elephant is wrought with challenges throughout the world.
Many of these challenges are caused by the conflict between humans and
elephants. In
CVs:
Pending
(1) Ashoka Trust
for Research in Ecology and the Environment, (2) Indian Institute of Science,
(3)
E-mails:
_____________________________
Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan
(1, 2), Anindya Sinha1, (2)
[Indian Institute of Science,
[Download PDF of paper]
Abstract: In the centuries-old classic Matangalila,
the sage Nilakantha describes the ponderings of Palakapya on the agony of elephants held captive by the
king Romapada, as part of his conflict-mitigation
strategies. Romapada's question "What can I
do?" in the context of human-elephant interactions still holds true,
centuries later, as we continue to argue over ways to deal with this
increasingly larger-than-life problem. The Palakapyan
debates on elephant welfare are of particular relevance to Kerala, a southern
Indian state, where elephants – formerly living symbols of pride and pomp – are
revered as cultural and religious icons and, of late, as celebrities. With the
rise in the celebrity status of elephants and their increasing fanfare, there
is heightened competition among people who own and manage elephants, leading to
a drastic decline in the welfare of the elephants themselves. They are
money-spinners today, shuttling across the state to be paraded at festivals, in
the name of God, leading to a slow abjection of a traditional practice. In this
paper we examine the transformations, over time, of the human-elephant
relationship in captivity, as influenced by historic and recent processes, and
explore how it has influenced the lives of both protagonists, particularly in
contemporary contexts.
CV: My
deep interest in elephant behaviour, especially in human-modified landscapes,
led to a Master's degree in Wildlife Biology and Conservation, wherein I
investigated behavioural and physiological stress in Asian elephants in a
human-dominated landscape in the
(1) National Institute of Advanced
Studies,
(2) Nature Conservation Foundation,
___________________________________________________________________
Abstracts in Alphabetical Order of Authors
___________________________________________________________________
Tresa Abraham (IIT
Shibani Bose [Department of History,
Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation,
William G. Clarence-Smith [SOAS,
Régis Debruyne
[Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris] [Abstract]
Rachel Dwyer [SOAS,
Ed Emery [SOAS,
Shubhobroto Ghosh [TRAFFIC
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi [
Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando [Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES),
Paul G. Keil
[Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia] [Abstract]
Nicolas Lainé
[Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France (Paris)] [Abstract]
Piers Locke [
Nisha P R [Department of History,
Florencia Pierri [
Andrew Reid [
Jonathan Saha [
Arupjyoti Saikia [Indian
Institute of Technology Guwahati] [Abstract]
Kim Stallwood
[Independent scholar] [Abstract]
Raman Sukumar
[Centre for Ecological Studies, IISc,
Maria Thaker
[Indian
Tarsh Thekaekara [Shola Trust, Nilgiris and Open
University] [Abstract]
Thomas R. Trautmann
[
Abi Tamin Vanak [Ashoka Trust for Research
in Ecology and the Environment] [Abstract]
Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan
and Anindya Sinha [Indian Institute of
Science,
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Prajna
Chowta: https://youtu.be/9_4kvrczPFI
William
Clarence-Smith: https://youtu.be/6puGQ3wdAJw
Paul Keil: https://youtu.be/F0YjLF3VnXA
Nicolas Lainé: pending
Piers Locke: https://youtu.be/LiXfTRxAvJ8
Nisha P R: https://youtu.be/LdzI8IbQnc8
Andrew
Reid: https://youtu.be/qHR5s7kvZQQ
Jonathan Saha: https://youtu.be/U9zknPMOT8I
Arupjiyoti Saikia: https://youtu.be/PiWC8pLWNoU
Kim Stallwood:
https://youtu.be/lhrk-gBZeLQ
Raman Sukumar:
https://youtu.be/ztiC_67feqY
____________________________________
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The
Camel Conference @ SOAS [2011, 2012, 2013, 2015,
2017]
War
Horses of the World @ SOAS [2014]
The Elephant Conference
@ SOAS [2016]
Weblink
for Centre for Ecological Sciences [CES]
____________________________________
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programme: www.soas.ac.uk/elephant-conference-2016/
* Main Conference website: www.soas.ac.uk/elephant-conference-2016/
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