Interspecies politics in Himalayan borderlands from the mid-nineteenth century to the present

Climate change, escalating geopolitical tensions, and domestic civil unrest have multiplied the claims made on Himalayan territories cohabited by animals and humans in the name of security, conservation, and development.

Hence, the study of human-animal conflicts has become a major area of focus for International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) like the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

Despite their efforts, scholars point out that current approaches by INGOs discount the interconnected nature of historical, cultural, and political dimensions of human-animal interactions, which limits their ability to create sustainable and just solutions to the ongoing processes of political, ecological, and economic transitions for indigenous communities and their non-human cohabitants, both in the Himalaya, as well as across the globe.INTERSPECBORD examines how interspecies politics historically shape the mobility and identities of human and animal bodies in South Asian Himalayan borderlands from the colonial period in the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

Rather than approaching this subject from the perspective of the ‘global south’ or ‘global north,’ this project will emphasise the role of circulation and the ways that different assemblages of ideas, technologies, people, and animals move across space and how historical encounters between these assemblages both shape and are shaped by Himalayan borderland places and ecologies.

Against this historical background, this project will investigate how human and non-human species co-produce new bordering practices, which includes hybrid identities, practices of social differentiation, and novel ways of establishing control over borderland spaces.

Methodologically, INTERSPECBORD is an interdisciplinary project combining historical research inspired by postcolonial approaches with multispecies ethnography.