Ethnoelephantology and The Multispeces Turn- New Approaches to Human-Elephant Relations

Type of content
Discussion / Working Papers
Publisher's DOI/URI
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
Date
2014
Authors
Locke P
Abstract

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 disciplines across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Such disciplinary divisions, predicated on oppositions of human/animal and nature/culture, are integral to the configuration of modernist thought. However, posthumanist and biocultural thinking questions the underlying epistemological conventions, thereby opening up interdisciplinary possibilities for human-animal studies. In relation to issues of conflict and coexistence, this paper charts the emergence of an interdisciplinary research programme and discursive space for human-elephant intersections under the rubric of ethnoelephantology. Recognizing continuities between the sentient and affective lifeworlds of humans and elephants, the mutual entanglements of their social, historical, and ecological relations, and the relevance of combining social and natural science methodologies, it surveys recent research from anthropology, history, and geography that exemplifies this new approach.

Description
Citation
Locke P (2014). Ethnoelephantology and The Multispeces Turn- New Approaches to Human-Elephant Relations. 18pp-.
Keywords
human-elephant relations, ethnoelephantology, multispecies ethnography, more-than-human geography, trans-species history, captive elephant management, elephant conservation, human-elephant conflict
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Field of Research::20 - Language, Communication and Culture::2002 - Cultural Studies::200299 - Cultural Studies not elsewhere classified
Field of Research::16 - Studies in Human Society::1601 - Anthropology::160199 - Anthropology not elsewhere classified
Rights