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    Elephant Training in Nepal: Multispecies Ethnography and Rites of Passage (2012)

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    Type of Content
    Discussion / Working Papers
    UC Permalink
    http://hdl.handle.net/10092/9993
    
    Publisher
    University of Canterbury. School of Language, Social and Political Sciences
    University of Canterbury. Anthropology
    Collections
    • Arts: Working Papers [21]
    Authors
    Locke, P.
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    Abstract

    In this presentation Piers draws on his ethnographic research with working elephants and their handlers in the lowland national parks of Nepal, focussing in particular on elephant training at the Khorsor Elephant Breeding Centre. It is argued that the recently adapted elephant training practices do not merely consist of a practical process whereby juvenile elephants are made ready to respond to handlers in their future working lives. Rather, they also represent a rite of passage, by which both the principal handler and his elephant together achieve a new status. This ritual process is described in relation to anthropological theory developed by Van Gennep, Turner, and Bloch, but with the novel contention that it can also be applied to non-human persons. As such, this argument is also situated within the emerging field of multispecies ethnography, which claims that in a world of complex entanglements the object of anthropological enquiry can consist of more than just human beings.

    Citation
    Locke, P. (2012) Elephant Training in Nepal: Multispecies Ethnography and Rites of Passage. 23pp.
    This citation is automatically generated and may be unreliable. Use as a guide only.
    Keywords
    Environmental Anthropology; Human-animal relations; multispecies ethnography; rites of passage; human-elephant relations; captive elephant management; elephant breeding; Chitwan; Nepal
    ANZSRC Fields of Research
    16 - Studies in Human Society::1601 - Anthropology::160199 - Anthropology not elsewhere classified
    Rights
    https://hdl.handle.net/10092/17651

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