Adivasi (Tea Tribe) worldviews of living close to wild Asian elephants in Assam, India

IF 5.2 1区 环境科学与生态学 Q1 BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
Sayan Banerjee, Dibakar Nayak, Anindya Sinha
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Abstract

In Assam state, northeastern India, human–elephant conflict mitigation has included technocentric measures, such as installation of barriers, alternative livelihoods, and afforestation. Such measures treat conflict as a technical problem with linear cause–effect relations and are usually ineffective over the long term because they do not consider how historical conditions have shaped present interactions between humans and elephants. Human–elephant encounters in South Asia, including in Assam, have arisen from colonial and postcolonial land-use policies, ethnic relations, and capital extraction. To disentangle these relations, we conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Udalguri district of Assam among the Adivasi (Tea Tribe) to examine their interactions with wild elephants. Through socioecological ruptures, caused by displacement and deforestation, Adivasi (Tea Tribe) and elephant lives have intersected through space and time. Adivasi (Tea Tribe) life narratives and observations of daily encounters with elephants revealed that their interactions are multifaceted and motivated by multiple factors. Myths and oral testimonies revealed that the community has created conceptualizations of the elephant by closely observing their behavior, especially their movements, diets, vocalizations, and interactions with humans. These conceptualizations are filled with vignettes of shared marginalized lives, caused by the loss of homeland, food poverty, and uncertain ways of living. The empathy, expressed by the Adivasi (Tea Tribe), highlights ways of living with elephants that are affective and reach beyond technocentric interventions. For Adivasi (Tea Tribe) members, cohabitation could thus be achieved by living close to elephants as uneasy neighbors. Concepts of cohabitation, we suggest, could be harnessed to inform conservation policy and bring into focus the critically important—and yet often underutilized—values, encompassed by bottom-up, place-centric understandings of what elephants are and how coexistence may be possible in increasingly anthropogenic landscapes.

Abstract Image

印度阿萨姆邦阿迪瓦西人(茶叶部落)与野生亚洲象亲密相处的世界观
在印度东北部的阿萨姆邦,缓解人象冲突的措施包括以技术为中心的措施,如设置障碍、替代生计和植树造林。这些措施将冲突视为一个具有线性因果关系的技术问题,由于没有考虑到历史条件是如何影响人类与大象当前的互动关系的,因此从长远来看通常是无效的。包括阿萨姆邦在内的南亚地区的人象冲突源于殖民地和后殖民时期的土地使用政策、种族关系和资本攫取。为了厘清这些关系,我们在阿萨姆邦乌达尔古里地区的阿迪瓦西人(茶部落)中进行了人种学田野调查,研究他们与野象的互动。由于流离失所和森林砍伐造成的社会生态断裂,阿迪瓦西人(茶部落)和大象的生活在空间和时间上发生了交集。阿迪瓦西人(茶部落)的生活叙事和与大象日常接触的观察结果表明,他们之间的互动是多方面的,受到多种因素的影响。神话和口头证词显示,社区通过密切观察大象的行为,特别是它们的行动、饮食、发声以及与人类的互动,对大象进行了概念化。这些概念充满了因失去家园、食物匮乏和生活方式不确定而导致的共同边缘化生活的小故事。阿迪瓦西人(茶部落)所表达的同理心突出了与大象共同生活的方式,这种方式是情感性的,超越了以技术为中心的干预。因此,对于阿迪瓦西(茶叶部落)成员来说,可以通过与大象作为不和谐的邻居生活在一起来实现同居。我们认为,可以利用同居的概念为保护政策提供信息,并使人们关注自下而上的、以地方为中心的理解所包含的极其重要但却往往未得到充分利用的价值,即大象是什么,以及如何在日益人类化的景观中实现共存。
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来源期刊
Conservation Biology
Conservation Biology 环境科学-环境科学
CiteScore
12.70
自引率
3.20%
发文量
175
审稿时长
2 months
期刊介绍: Conservation Biology welcomes submissions that address the science and practice of conserving Earth's biological diversity. We encourage submissions that emphasize issues germane to any of Earth''s ecosystems or geographic regions and that apply diverse approaches to analyses and problem solving. Nevertheless, manuscripts with relevance to conservation that transcend the particular ecosystem, species, or situation described will be prioritized for publication.
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