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Yearly Archives: 2013
Symposium on Human-Elephant Relations in South and Southeast Asia
On May 7 & 8, at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, an international group of researchers from across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences met to present papers and discuss a variety of connected issues in human-elephant relations. The event featured anthropologists, ecologists, geographers, historians, political scientists, Sanskritists, zoologists, and zoo elephant experts from Australia, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, UK, and USA.
The symposium was concerned with ways of theorizing the human-elephant nexus, with human-elephant histories, with ethnographies of captive elephant management, with elephant welfare, and with conflict and coexistence in elephant conservation. The New Zealand news media were somewhat curious as to why such an event should be occurring in the Land of the Long White Cloud, but the charismatic qualities of a species so very entangled with human activity ensured a healthy interest from the public. The New Zealand South Asia Centre (NZSAC) and the School of Social and Political Sciences (SAPS) were honoured to host such a dynamic mix of senior, world-class and junior, up-and-coming researchers. The event proved to be intimate and congenial, with compelling presentations and vibrant discussion. As such an unusually interdisciplinary meeting, participants remarked upon the refreshing opportunity to learn from colleagues with differing disciplinary expertise. New academic friendships were made, the prospect of new collaborations forged, and plans to publish the papers agreed upon. One participant even asked when and where the next version of this event would occur!
A full conference report will be posted on this blog soon. See the Symposium Programme with abstracts
University of Canterbury Media Releases
Endangered Elephants: Past, Present and Future
In 2003 the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust hosted the Symposium on Human-Elephant Relations and Conflicts in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Edited by Jayantha Jayawardene, the conference proceedings were published as Endangered Elephants: Past, Present and Future.
Many of the world’s leading elephant experts presented papers on elephants in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania, covering topics on behaviour, captive management, conflict with humans, conservation projects and policies, crop-raiding, demography, genetics, habitat use, and social organization. For abstracts of the papers, see: http://www.elephantsinsrilanka.org/symposium2003.htm#2.
Unravelling the wider impacts of living with elephants
Discussion on the Elephant Family website of the recent paper by Maan Barua and Shushrut Jadhav about the social and psychological effects of human-elephant conflict in Assam
Information on the doctoral thesis of Nicolas Laine at the University of Paris, Nanterre
Nicolas is based at the Laboratory of Comparative Ethnology and Sociology, and his doctoral thesis is titled: “Living with elephants: Coexistence, sociability and cooperation between elephants and the Khamti in Arunachel Pradesh, Northeast India”
Where Jumbo is Sold
Article by Surendra Varma and Deepika Prasad about the Sonepur Mela- an ancient livestock fair where elephants can still be bought and sold
http://www.beasonefoundation.org/elephant/where-jumbo-is-sold
New baby born in Chitwan
Photo courtesy of Birendra Mahato
Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and The Business of The American Circus
Eagerly anticipated book by historian Susan Nance exploring the history of elephants in 19th century American circuses, informed by animal welfare science research.
http://www.susannance.com/Y/susan_nance_Entertaining_Elephants.html
Elephant Breeding Program Begins in Laos
report by PhD candidate Ingrid Suter at the University of Queensland, who is working in conjunction with Elefant Asia and Elephant Conservation Center. This article describes Ingrid’s research on captive elephant management in Laos, and reports on the newly opened Elephant Conservation Center, includes link to photo gallery.
Human Elephant (no) Conflict
Researcher Tarsh Thekaekara reports on a local community assisting an elephant that had strayed into their territory
Ramesh- photo by Tarsh Thekeakara
http://tarshthek.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/human-elephant-no-conflict/
Ethnoelephantology 