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

View/ Open
Type of Content
Discussion / Working PapersPublisher
University of Canterbury. School of Language, Social and Political SciencesUniversity of Canterbury. Anthropology
Collections
- Arts: Working Papers [21]
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; NepalANZSRC Fields of Research
16 - Studies in Human Society::1601 - Anthropology::160199 - Anthropology not elsewhere classifiedRelated items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Ethnoelephantology and The Multispeces Turn- New Approaches to Human-Elephant Relations
Locke P (2014)Humans and elephants have lived together and shared space together in diverse ways for millennia. The intersections between these thinking and feeling species have been differently explored, for different reasons, by ... -
Humans, Elephants, and Interspecies Intimacy in the Chitwan National Park, Nepal
Locke P (Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, Germany, 2015) -
Ethnoelephantology and The Multispeces Turn- New Approaches to Human-Elephant Relations
Locke P (2014)Humans and elephants have lived together and shared space together in diverse ways for millennia. The intersections between these thinking and feeling species have been differently explored, for different reasons, by ...