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THE SOAS

ELEPHANT READER

 

 

Proceedings of the SOAS Elephant Conferences

held at CES Bangalore, 4-6 April 2016

and the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], London, 2019

 

 

CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

 

[in alphabetical order of authors]

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On the deification of Guruvayur Kesavan: Making of an animal religious subject through cultural productions

Tresa Abraham (IIT Bombay) [Abstract] [PDF]

 

The elephant and its ivory in the sculpture of Western Europe

Charles Avery [Independent researcher] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

The regal elephant in medieval Cairo

Doris Behrens-Abouseif [SOAS, University of London] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephants under the Rising Sun

Martha Chaiklin [Historian] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Cultural aberrations in the management of captive elephants

Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation, Bangalore, India] [Abstract] [PDF]

The legend of Palakapya

Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation, Bangalore, India] [PDF]

 

Elephants in Islamic history

William G. Clarence-Smith [SOAS, University of London] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Contribution of comparative genetics to the understanding of the evolution and distribution of elephants

Régis Debruyne [Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

The Elephant in England

Ed Emery [SOAS, University of London] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephant trade in Sonepur: Illegal wildlife trade under the guise of tradition?

Shubhobroto Ghosh [TRAFFIC India] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephants in modern Afghanistan: From imperial functionality to post-colonial national foil

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi [James Madison University (USA)] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Wildlife Crime, legal prosecution and experience in combatting Wildlife Crime in the illegal trade of elephant calves in Sri Lanka

Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando [Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES), Diyakapilla, Sri Lanka] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

The intertwined and co-shaped pathways of elephants and humans in the forests of Assam, North-east India

Paul G. Keil [Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Voice, song, lyric in North-East India: Singing to elephants to train them

Nicolas Lainé [Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France (Paris)] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephant training in Nepal: Rites of passages in an interspecies community

Piers Locke [University of Canterbury, New Zealand] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

The journeys of elephants: An Indian circus trail

Nisha P R [Department of History, University of Delhi] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephant ecology and the emergence of the state in Great Lakes Africa

Andrew Reid [Institute of Archaeology, University College London] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephants on board the Manila Galleon: From exotic gifts to Hispanic-Philippine ivory sculptures

Ana Ruiz Gutiérrez [University of Granada] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Corruption in the Keddah: Elephants, fraud and environmental history in colonial Burma

Jonathan Saha [University of Leeds] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephants, zamindars and state: History of contested hunting rights in  Western Assam

Arupjyoti Saikia [Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Elephant hunting and poaching in Botswana: Politics, popular grievances and the power of animal advocacy

Keith Somerville [University of Kent] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Topsy, an elephant we must never forget

Kim Stallwood [Independent scholar] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Knowledge of the elephant since ancient times

Raman Sukumar [Centre for Ecological Studies, IISc, Bangalore] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Local Celebrities – Stories of elephant personalities in the Gudalur Region of the Nilgiris, South India

Tarsh Thekaekara [Shola Trust, Nilgiris and Open University] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

Shooting an elephant

Thomas R. Trautmann [University of Michigan] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

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; University of KwaZulu-Natal] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

In God’s own country: Elephants as religious and cultural icons, and as celebrities

Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan and Anindya Sinha [Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore / Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore] [Abstract] [PDF]

 

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LIST OF ABSTRACTS – WITH LINKS TO FULL PAPERS

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On the deification of Guruvayur Kesavan: Making of an animal religious subject through cultural productions

 

Tresa Abraham [IIT Bombay]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

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 Panthalm, 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 India' at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in IIT Bombay.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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The elephant and its ivory in the sculpture of Western Europe

 

Charles Avery

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: The elephant has always been considered a royal beast, on account of its sheer size, might and impressive tusks. The enormous size of the males and their latent aggression, encouraged their use as weapons of war – famously by Hannibal. With training the animal could serve mankind’s needs for beasts of burden too, while its intelligence, normal docility and memory enabled it to perform varied feats of entertainment.

 

From 1492 the Portuguese pioneered the importation of individual elephants – often with their original trainers and given evocative names – by ship round the Cape of Good Hope to Lisbon. Accordingly rare and very valuable, elephants were often used for diplomatic gifts. As exotic curiosities they also naturally attracted the attention of artists, either at court, or when on view or passing by.

 

Owing to the distance from Europe of the native habitats of the elephant in Africa and India, ivory was always extremely rare and accordingly was highly prized. Tusks could be adapted into hunting or battle-horns, or, despite their curving shape, be used as an ideal material for carving and polishing, particularly into the appearance of human flesh.

 

CV: A graduate from Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute, Charles Avery is a specialist in European sculpture. Having been Deputy Keeper of Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a Director of Christie's, since 1990 he has been an independent historian, consultant, and writer. His books include Florentine Renaissance Sculpture (1970); Donatello: an Introduction (1994); Giambologna, the Complete Sculpture (1987); Bernini, Genius of the Baroque (1997/2006); and A School of Dolphins (2009). He is currently preparing The Distinguish’d Elephant – a wide-ranging study of the animals that have been brought to Europe. and the ideas and imagery that they evoked in the minds of artists.

 

E-mail: [email protected]

 

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The regal elephant in medieval Cairo

 

Doris Behrens-Abouseif [SOAS, University of London]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: The elephant is well represented in medieval Egyptian sources both in visual as well as textual sources between the Fatimid and the Mamluk periods. It is represented on ceramics and metal vessels and the chronicles present accounts and anecdotes about the presence of the elephant in royal menageries and its use in parades and as a diplomatic gift. It is also mentioned in bestiaries and other literature.

 

CV: Doris Behrens-Abouseif is Emerita Professor at SOAS, University of London

 

From 2000 to 2014: Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology (Nasser D Khalili chair) at SOAS, University of London. Visiting professor in several universities: Bamberg, Berlin (Freie Universität), Harvard University, American University in Cairo and the University of Virginia.


Has published over a wide range of subjects from the early period to the 19th century focussing especially on Egypt and Syria: Islamic architecture, urbanism, waqf , decorative arts, Islamic cultural history and concepts of aesthetics.

 

E-mail: [email protected]

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Elephants under the Rising Sun

 

Martha Chaiklin [Historian]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: Japan has a long and complicated history with elephants. Humans and proboscidea co-existed only briefly but pachyderms have left a large footprint on the history of Japan. From food to medicine to personal ornamentation, a relationship with elephants impacted the lives of all segments of society. This paper will trace the importance of elephants to Edo period (1603-1868) Japan when Japan was theoretically “closed” to the outside world and when its citizens were forbidden from traveling abroad. During the Edo period commercial arrangements with the Dutch East India Company and the later involvement of Chinese traders brought ivory to Japan in larger quantities than ever before. Over the same period, live elephants were brought to Japan, which combined with ideas and beliefs imported from the Asian continent populated the Japanese mental landscape with elephants. East India Company documents will be supplemented by primary source and visual documents to show how elephants connected a geographically and politically isolated Japan to a much wider world.

CV: Martha Chaiklin received her PhD at Leiden University. She specialises in material culture, the East India Companies, and Edo and Meiji Japan. She authored Ivory and the Aesthetics of Modernity in Meiji Japan (2014) and Cultural Commerce and Dutch Commercial Culture: The Impact of European Material Culture on Japan (2003) as well as numerous shorter works, only one of which is on elephants: “Elephants in the Making of Early Modern India” in Pius Malekandathil, ed. The Indian Ocean in the Making of Early Modern India (2016). She is currently working on a book on ivory in the early modern world.

 

E-mail: [email protected]


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Cultural aberrations in the management of captive elephants.

 

Prajna Chowta [Aane Mane Foundation, BangaloreIndia]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

Abstract: All methods used in the management of elephants in captivity originate from traditional practices developed in South Asia since 4000 years. These methods were borrowed and adapted when elephants were exported to Europe and North America for the purpose of circuses and zoos, two forms of captivity that reflected the essence of colonial imperialism and caused the relocation of elephants outside their home range.

 

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 Europe and the realisation that zoos and circuses were a complete failure in terms of elephant conservation. Consequently, methods known as Protected Contact and Positive Reinforcement were adopted to address the moralistic concerns regarding cruelty to the animals without questioning the principles of captivity.

 

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 Ghana. She completed her primary education in Bangalore, then a degree in London and a Masters in archaeology and anthroplogy at SOAS. In 1994, she returned to India and spent several years with tribes in various regions to research the traditional techniques of capturing and taming elephants.

 

In 2000, she created the Aane Mane Foundation and researched the migration of wild elephants between Burma and India, funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In 2002, she readapted captive elephants to a forest in Karnataka. She also trains young tribal mahouts while modernising traditional techniques according to recent scientific research.

 

She published the Elephant Code Book (2010) on captive elephant management with the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation and the Ministry of Environment (New Delhi) and participated in various films and documentaries.

 

In 2014, she released the book Enfant d'Elephant with Elytis Editions in France.

 

Website: www.aanemane.org

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Elephants in Islamic history

 

William G. Clarence-Smith [SOAS, University of London]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 Asia. Arab popular tradition portrayed elephants as 'mighty,' but also as 'dark monsters,' partly because Persians and Indians fielded them against Muslim invaders, who were mounted on camels and horses. However, the elephant was highly regarded in Persian culture, which revived with the 'Abbasid caliphate from 750 CE, and spread across the Dar al-Islam. Muslim rulers thus bestowed elephants as prestigious gifts. Further east, where Hinduism and Buddhism treated the elephant as holy, Asian Muslims regularly employed elephants for war, hunting, and animal fights, as well as transport.

 

CV: William Gervase Clarence-Smith is Professor of the Economic History of Asia and Africa at SOAS, University of London, and chief editor of the Journal of Global History (LSE and Cambridge University Press). He has published on the history of horses, mules, donkeys, camels, elephants, and bovids around the world, as traded commodities, military beasts, sporting champions, sources of symbolic power, origins of food and raw materials, transport animals, movers of agricultural and proto-industrial machinery, and bearers of disease. He is currently undertaking research for a global history of mules since circa 1400.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Contribution of comparative genetics to the understanding of the evolution and distribution of elephants

 

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 Asia.

 

CV: Regis Debruyne is a research engineer in genomics and paleogenetics at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN, ParisFrance). He has a long-lasting research interest in the integrative taxonomy of the elephantids. He has studied the morpho-molecular divergence among the three lineages of Elephantinae: Loxodonta, Elephas and Mammuthus. He has also worked within each genus, with publications dedicated to the diversity between forest and savannah elephants in Africa, and the phylogeography and molecular clocks of mammoths during the Pleistocene.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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The Elephant in England

 

Ed Emery [SOAS, University of London]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

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. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at SOAS.

 

E-mail: [email protected]

 

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Elephant trade in Sonepur: Illegal wildlife trade under the guise of tradition?

 

Presenter: Shubhobroto Ghosh [TRAFFIC India]

 

Investigators: Shekhar Niraj, Head TRAFFIC India and Shubhobroto Ghosh, Senior Programme Officer, TRAFFIC India

 

[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 Assam. The animals are also exhibited in conditions that are detrimental for their health and well being and stand to be a danger to human safety, especially animals in musth that are paraded in extremely crowded conditions. The Sonepur display and trade in elephants also takes place due to an ambiguity in the law, Section 40(2B) and 43 of the Wildlife Protection Act, that traders have traditionally taken advantage of. This presentation places the findings of TRAFFIC regarding the nature of elephant trade in Sonepur and what measures can be taken to curb this practice to ensure survival of these majestic pachyderms in the wild. The objectives of this presentation are the following :

 

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 StatesmanNew York TimesThe HinduMontreal SeraiSanctuary Asia and Nature India online. He is the former coordinator of the Indian Zoo Inquiry project sponsored by Zoocheck Canada and has attended the Principles and Practice Training course at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. He did his Masters thesis on British zoos at the University of Westminster. He has been associated with a number of wildlife protection groups in India and abroad and currently works as Senior Programme Officer at TRAFFIC India at the WWF India Headquarters in New Delhi.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Wildlife Crime, legal prosecution and experience in combatting Wildlife Crime in the illegal trade of elephant calves in Sri Lanka

 

Sujeewa Jasinghe and Sudarshani Fernando [Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES), DiyakapillaSri Lanka]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: The capture of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus maximus) – a sub-species, found in Sri Lanka – for illegal captivity, was investigated during a period of 18 months. The findings include a description of the capture sites and the types of individuals involved in the crime network, methods of capture, preparation of forged documents and prosecution in combatting Wildlife Crime in relation to elephants in Sri Lanka.

 

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 "organised" 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 Sri Lanka's Dry Zone forest setting, facilitating participatory community initiatives in natural and cultural resource management, where the authors serve as anthropologist and environmentalist respectively. The work engaged in includes consultancies and advocacy through volunteer action to promote, conserve and protect biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge and recognise legal mechanisms for law enforcement, focusing on combatting Wildlife Crime, with a special emphasis on illegal captures of wild-born elephant calves.

 

Sentinels Against Wildlife Crime,

Centre for Eco-cultural Studies (CES)

P O Box 03, Diyakapilla, Sri Lanka

 

www.cessrilanka.com

 

E-mail: [email protected] / [email protected]

 

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Elephants in Modern Afghanistan: From imperial functionality to post-colonial national foil

 

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi [James Madison University (USA)]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: This paper surveys a fast-moving elephantine history in Afghanistan from the mid-eighteenth to the late twentieth century when the elephant's practical value and symbolic power ebbed and flowed dramatically. The paper first situates the highly visible practical and symbolic uses of elephants in the Durrani Afghan empire under its founder Ahmad Shah and his son and successor Timur Shah (combined r. 1747-1793). The second section addresses the largely symbolic use of elephants by the transitional rulers, Dost Muhammad Khan and Shah Shuja, both of whose multiple reigns (combined c.1809-1863) are associated with the first phase of British Indian influence on Afghanistan, including the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42) wherein elephants had a relatively low profile and presence, particularly in comparison to their much greater influence in the context of the second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-80). The final parts of the paper address the highly valued heavy transport-related functions of elephants for the Afghan Amirs Abd al-Rahman and Habibullah Khan (combined r. 1880-1919), and the contrasting largely symbolic ceremonial deployments of elephants by Amanullah and his successors Nadir and Zahir Shah (combined r. 1919-1973) to cultivate a distinct form of national modernity that instead reveal intimate historical and cultural relations with India.

 

CV: Shah Mahmoud Hanifi is an Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian History at James Madison University. He is the author of Connecting Histories in Afghanistan (Stanford University Press, 2011) and a number of essays on the history, culture and politics of Afghanistan. Hanifi participated in the inaugural SOAS camel conference in 2011. 

 

http://www.jmu.edu/history/people/all-people/Hanifi.shtml

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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The intertwined and co-shaped pathways of elephants and humans in the forests of AssamNorth-east India.

 

Paul G. Keil [Macquarie UniversitySydneyAustralia]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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, Assam, forest trails are co-shaped by human and elephant alike. Paths are produced, maintained, and shared by both species while they forage for resources. Walking along dandi – Assamese for “elephant trails” – reveals how human and elephant lives have historically been intertwined, bound together by ecological, political, and cultural threads. This paper begins in the ethnographic present, following informants on everyday practices along dandi, and reflecting on the forces that give shape to these paths and those who travel along them. We will then turn to British accounts of negotiating the North-East and how elephant trails figured into colonisation, arguing that we need to acknowledge the role of elephants as ecosystem engineers in shaping the history of the region. Part of an emerging anthropology of human-elephant relations, and aligned with the broader "multispecies" turn in the social sciences, this paper explores these interspecies entanglements beyond the frame of "conflict", employing analysis that blurs the distinction between nature and culture, human and nonhuman.

 

CV: Paul Keil is a PhD Candidate in social anthropology, from Macquarie UniversityAustralia, investigating human-elephant relationships and supervised by Dr Greg Downey and Dr Piers Locke. A Prime Minister's Endeavour award recipient, Paul conducted 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, amongst communities who live on the fringes of elephant habitat and must negotiate place with these formidable animals. His anthropological research attempts to speak across disciplines and find ways of conceptualising social worlds populated by both human and nonhuman agents. Before elephants, Paul conducted ethnographic research on sheepdog trialling, and experimental psychological studies on collaborative remembering in older couples.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Voice, sound, melody: Music as a training tool and a way to interact with elephants in Northeast India

 

Nicolas Lainé [Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France (Paris)]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [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 Northeast India the Khamtis, as well as other local populations, address chants to newly captured pachyderms during each step of their integration into the human world. What are the peculiarities of these chants and how can we define them? What roles do they play in the training process? Within the interspecies communication, what are the differences between voices (commands), sounds and melodies?

 

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 University Paris-West University La Défense. In his dissertation he has questionned the terms and conditions of living together between the Tai-Khamtis and elephants in Northeast India. He has published several articles on human/elephant relationships in the subcontinent and is the co-editor of the collective volume Nature, Environment and Society (Orient Blackswan 2012). He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Laboratoire d'anthropologie Social, Collège de France in Paris and a member of the collective research project “Animal companions: theorizing animals relationship to work” funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR)

 

Personal webpage : http://las.ehess.fr/index.php?2334

 

Academia : https://college-de-france.academia.edu/NicolasLaine

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Elephant training in Nepal: Rites of passages in an interspecies community

 

Piers Locke [University of CanterburyNew Zealand]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

Abstract: Focussing on fieldwork at the Khorsor Elephant Breeding Centre, Nepalthis paper argues for a form of ethnographic analysis that treats both humans and elephants as subjective actors bound together in constituting an interspecies community. By attending to the mutual, cross-species intimacies of life, labour, and moral responsibility in the elephant stable, I subvert the dominant categorical and disciplinary exclusions of the social sciences and the natural sciences, arguing for an integrated approach to human-elephant relations I call ethnoelephantology (Locke 2013).

 

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 South Asia.

 

E-mail[email protected]

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The Journeys of Elephants: An Indian Circus Trail

 

Nisha P R [Department of History, University of Delhi]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 Kerala State. But interestingly elephants did not figure in the list of animals banned from circus in the historical 1991 ban by the Environment Ministry of Government of India. We must bear in mind that even dogs made it onto that list. Memories of circus community form an important source for my research and narrations regarding elephants have been significant in these memories which disclose the complexity of human-animal relationships, the subjectivity of the animal and also the distinctive self-perceptions of the trainers which often we, social scientists fail to see.

 

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, University of Delhi and is currently on a short term postdoctoral fellowship at the Human Geography Department, Lund UniversitySweden. Her writings have appeared in Economic and Political WeeklySocial Scientist and Indian Journal of Gender Studies.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Elephant ecology and the emergence of the state in Great Lakes Africa

 

Andrew Reid [Institute of ArchaeologyUniversity College London]

 

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¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 Institute of Archaeology, UCL, and has previously taught at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and the University of Botswana. His research has focused on the development of political complexity in eastern and southern Africa, examining variously the role of cattle, iron working and agriculture. He has also developed approaches to historical archaeology and public engagement within African archaeology.

 

E-mail[email protected]

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Elephants on board the Manila Galleon: From exotic gifts to Hispanic-Philippine ivory sculptures.

 

Ana Ruiz Gutiérrez [University of Granada]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: Between 1565 and 1815 the Manila galleon trade route ("Galeón de Manila") initiated a series of exchanges between the Philippines and Spain. In this paper I propose a comprehensive study of the relevance of the elephant in the Manila galleon, from the first elephant who arrived from the Philippines to Japan in the sixteenth century to the adventures of an elephant that arrived at the Madrid court in the eighteenth century. And also the uncut elephant tusks that were loaded onto the ships and later carved as religious sculptures, the well-known Hispanic-Philippine ivory sculptures that are present in collections around the world.

 

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 University of Granada since 2008 (UGR).Her research career is related to her main lines of research: art conections between Spain and the Philippines (XVI-XIX) through the path of the "Galeón de Manila", heritage: American range, Andalusia and America: cultural links.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Corruption in the Keddah: Elephants, fraud and environmental history in colonial Burma

 

Jonathan Saha [University of Leeds]

 

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¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

Abstract: In 1904 the Government of India transferred all of its elephant capturing operations to the province of Burma. This decision reflected the changing uses to which elephants were put. Their role providing transport for the Indian military was in decline and their employment in the timber industry was increasing, particularly in Burma's forests where teak was extracted. However, the move was an utter failure and the department was closed within ten years of relocating. It transpired that the head of the department had been capturing elephants, selling them privately to timber companies under the auspices of his own business, and doctoring paperwork to disguise his malfeasance. On one occasion it was claimed that over two hundred elephants had died in an anthrax outbreak, but under closer investigation it appeared that the epidemic had been a ruse to embezzle government funds. This paper explores this episode to uncover the ways in which colonial government policies transformed the ecologies of Burma, focusing on elephant populations. It argues that environmental historians need to be aware of the unintended consequences of state practices and pay attention to illegal activities.

 

CV: I am a University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds, working on the history of animals in colonial Burma. I have previously published on the history of corruption in my book Law, Disorder and the Colonial State: Corruption in Burma c.1900 (2013) and in articles in Past & PresentSouth East Asia Research and The Indian Economic & Social History Review. I have also published on the history of medicine in the colony in Modern Asian Studies and South East Asia Research, and most recently on animal history in the Journal of Social History.

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Elephants, zamindars and state: History of contested hunting rights in Western Assam

 

Arupjyoti Saikia [Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati]

 

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¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 University of Calcutta. He received his Ph.D from the University of Delhi in 2002. In 2011-12 he was awarded Agrarian Studies Fellowship at Yale UniversityUSA. In 2008 he received the Charles Wallace Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

 

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 Assam since 1900 (Routledge 2014) & b) Forests and Ecological History of Assam, 1826-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2011); c) Jungles, Reserves, Wildlife: A History of Forests in Assam (2005). Presently, Saikia is completing his next book manuscript entitled The Unquiet River: An Environmental Biography of the Brahmaputra.

 

E-mail[email protected]

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Elephant hunting and poaching in Botswana: Politics, popular grievances and the power of animal advocacy

 

Keith Somerville [University of Kent]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: Botswana is home to the largest population of elephants in the world and is a safe haven for the 204-260,000 elephants in the wider Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier region spanning Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It suffers environmental degradation and serious human wildlife conflict (resulting in deaths of people and loss of crops). From independence in 1966 to 2014 it had a conservation system mixing national parks, photographic safari areas and hunting concessions. This protected wildlife while bringing revenue for people to compensate for losses to wildlife, and to provide income, funds for schools, clinics and water pumps for communities living alongside wildlife. Elephant numbers rocketed from 50,000 in 1990 to between 130,0000-160,000 in 2014. The 2014 hunting ban, introduced by President Ian Khama, urged by anti-hunting lobbyists in Botswana some of whom were Khama's tourism business partners, did not work. Local communities were impoverished, elephants expanded their range in Botswana into farming areas and human-elephant conflict became serious. At the same time poaching increased, as local people helped foreign poachers. Now the ban has been lifted and hunting will resume, amid huge controversy. As of early 2021 hunting has resumed but is now on hold because of COVID.

 

E-mail: [email protected]

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Topsy, an elephant we must never forget

 

Kim Stallwood [Independent scholar]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 America's industrial empire. Tormented and abused, Topsy killed people through no fault of her own when she was part of a touring circus. She became a dangerous embarrassment to one of America's first amusement parks on Coney Island. It took 10 seconds for the 6,600 volts of electricity to kill her. The footage shot by Edison of Topsy's electrocution is recognised as an important development in film making history. Edison wanted to prove direct current was safer than alternating current (the alternative promoted by his rival, George Westinghouse) and thereby win the battle to electrify America. In 1887, Edison began experimenting with animals, primarily unwanted dogs and cats, by electrocuting them to prove AC was more dangerous than DC. These experiments were demonstrated to the press. Even though he opposed capital punishment, Edison secretly paid for the first electric chair to be built for the State of New York. Topsy was murdered because expediency and spectacle conspired with power and profit. 

 

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 UK and US. His consultant practice includes client organisations in the UK and US His book, Growl: Life Lessons, Hard Truths, and Bold Strategies from an Animal Advocate, was published by Lantern Books in 2014. He became a vegetarian in 1974, after working in a chicken slaughterhouse. He has been a vegan since 1976. 

 

Websitewww.kimstallwood.com

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Knowledge of the elephant since ancient times

 

Raman Sukumar [Centre for Ecological Studies, IISc, Bangalore]

 

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¶ [Link to Audio file]

 

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 Asia. The rapid development of science and technology during the 20th century is contributing to a more comprehensive knowledge base and understanding of the elephant.

 

E-mail[email protected]

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Local Celebrities – Stories of elephant personalities in the Gudalur Region of the Nilgiris, South India

 

Tarsh Thekaekara [Shola Trust, Nilgiris and Open University]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

Abstract: India is home to about 60% of the world's Asian Elephants, and only 22% of its range is within legally protected areas. The future of this species arguably hinges on its ability to share space with people. But the majority of research in the field field is by biologists studying elephants in "pristine wilderness" landscapes; much less is known about elephants living alongside people. The social sciences are witnessing a growing interest in elephants, with multi-species ethnography, animal, hybrid, more-than-human geography and even ethno-elephantology, but methods remain a key challenge. Social scientists lack the skills and training required for tracking, observing and understanding wild elephants.

 

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]

 

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Shooting an elephant

 

Thomas R. Trautmann [University of Michigan]

 

[Download PDF of paper]

 

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 India continues to be the largest in the world, owing to the long history of protection by kings.

 

CV: Thomas R. Trautmann is Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology of the University of Michigan, where he taught ancient Indian history and the anthropology of kinship. He studied for the Ph.D. at SOAS under A.L. Basham. He is the author of several books, among them Elephants and kings: an environmental history (Permanent Black and University of Chicago Press, 2015).

 

E-mail[email protected]

 

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Fencing in the megaherbivore

 

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; University of KwaZulu-Natal]

 

[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 South Africa, the problem of human-wildlife conflict is primarily solved by the extensive use of wildlife fences. African elephant are therefore protected within the fenced boundaries of National Parks and private reserves. I will briefly revisit the history of fencing as a tool for elephant management and some of the costs associated with this strategy. I will continue by showing how African elephant are conditioned to avoid fences and how this affects their behaviour. I will end with some of the unexpected ecological and sociological consequences of fencing in this megaherbivore. Indirect edge effects on the landscape caused by the movement strategies of elephants in small fenced reserves may be altering environments in unplanned ways. Finally, the decades long separation large mammals and people has caused a massive disconnect between people living on the borders of reserves and the wildlife within these borders. Whether the loss of this connection is worth the benefit of reduced human-wildlife conflict is worth exploring.

 

CVs: Pending

 

(1) Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, (2) Indian Institute of Science, (3) University of KwaZulu-Natal

 

E-mails:

 

[email protected]

 

[email protected]

 

[email protected]

 

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In God's own country: Elephants as religious and cultural icons, and as celebrities

 

Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan (1, 2), Anindya Sinha1, (2)

[Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore /Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore]

 

[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 Western Ghats. I believe in multidisciplinary approaches involving behaviour, physiology, genetics and the social sciences in addressing issues such as human-elephant conflict. I am also interested in the sociocultural aspects of human-elephant interactions in India, elephant-mahout relationships and the portrayal of elephants in classical literary works of the past. I am currently pursuing a doctorate from the National Institute of Advanced Studies, BangaloreIndia.

 

(1) National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore

(2) Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore

 

E-mails: [email protected]

             [email protected]

 

 

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Conference chair: William Clarence-Smith [SOAS, University of London]

 

Conference organiser: Ed Emery [SOAS, University of London]

 

For all inquiries regarding the conference, please write to

 

E-mail: [email protected]

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

 

* Conferences organised by the Interdisciplinary Animal Studies Initiative [IASI], School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], University of London.

 

Website:

www.geocities.ws/soasanimalstudies

 

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Last updated: 10 May 2021