How do ideas about beasts and the wild inform our socio-cultural worldview? In other words, what is a “tiger” when it is not (just) a zoo animal but one that lives in a forest next to home? Do those that live near these animals fear them and their wild environments? What are their fears about?
In this introductory and interdisciplinary course to conservation and the environment, we’re going to focus on human/animal relations and wild environments to look at how peoples’ ideas about big beasts and untamed forests informs socio-cultural worldviews especially in relation to identity, social justice and the redistribution of natural resources in South Asia. We will delve into the topic through ethnographies, films, novels and paintings pertaining to the lives of those living in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka who depend on or live close to animals – especially large ones – and wild environments in different geophysical locales such as mountains, deserts, rivers, plains, forests, and the sea. The course aims to be an informative, provocative and a fun introduction to an exciting and relatively new field of scholarship.
Societal concerns of local communities will be understood in relation to both livelihoods as well as socio-cultural symbols. Taking a close look at national and global battles over wild spaces and their uses, over nonhumans and their purposes, we will also explore the history and politics of the appropriation of the symbolism of certain animals and wild environments by nation states. We will highlight how growing consumerism and tourism are affecting the relationship people share with their environments; raise issues about the violence that has followed corporations’ and states’ land-grabbing, especially of forests; and learn about how some of the world’s poorest communities are attempting to defend their livelihoods and ecologies.