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SUMMARY:Disappearing big cats and multiplying man-eaters in the Indian Ant
 hropocene - Nayanika Mathur (University of Sussex)
DTSTART:20170302T130000Z
DTEND:20170302T140000Z
UID:TALK70402@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Richard Staley
DESCRIPTION:Species extinction as well as increasing levels of human-anima
 l conflict are now widely considered two indicators of anthropic climate c
 hange. In this paper\, I ethnographically locate and study these two trend
 s in the Indian Himalaya in the context of leopards and tigers in an attem
 pt to elaborate how climate change is experienced in a specific region of 
 India. In the Himalaya there has been a reduction in the number of leopard
 s and tigers over time and\, at the same time\, there is an ongoing percei
 ved spike in attacks on humans by them. I describe how these two aspects a
 re ascribed to climate change (or what could be understood to be climate c
 hange) by a range of actors. These include officials\, conservationists\, 
 journalists\, wildlife biologists\, hunters\, and villagers in the Upper H
 imalaya. Climate change discourse has been discussed as 'elitist and exclu
 sive' (Beck 2012) and the absence of a wider acknowledgement of its immine
 nce has been ascribed to a 'failure of the imagination' (Ghosh 2016). Poli
 tical-psychological studies have argued the sheer enormity of the calamity
  that awaits us leads to active denialism (see Runciman 2014) while other 
 works have shown the agents that have worked towards manufacturing sceptic
 ism or misinformation (e.g. Conway and Oreskes 2012). In lieu of such an a
 pproach that bemoans the absences of a deeper environmental and climactic 
 consciousness\, I work through an ethnographic engagement with disappearin
 g big cats and multiplying man-eaters to argue that there are\, in fact\, 
 wide ranging non-elite discussions of climate change and life in the Anthr
 opocene in the everyday. What is needed is a finer attunement to stories a
 nd narratives that do not fit either the official\, scientific discourses 
 on climate change or the mainstream conservationist/developmental accounts
  that seek to protect big cats.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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