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- Convenors:
-
Mark Harris
(Monash University)
Nádia Farage (University of Campinas)
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- Stream:
- Evidence
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 31 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
How did colonial administrations conceive of responsibility in the context of Southern colonial histories? How did the colonised conceive of the world that sustained them? By focusing on responsibility towards other species and environment, our ambition is to encompass dissident and critical voices.
Long Abstract:
The colonial histories of animals, plants and other forms of life remains an incipient area of research in historical anthropology. Indeed, the historical anthropology that has flourished since the 1980s has been successfully devoted to the struggles of socio-diversity, especially in the colonial histories of the South. Biodiversity has not received the same level of attention. As a rule, biodiversity was treated as "landscape" in historical narratives, the passive background against which the tragedy of colonial history had taken place. Nevertheless, recent studies are challenging the trend and pointing out that histories of biodiversity, species loss and environmental degradation, are tied up with the loss of sociodiversity, and are interwoven with the histories of colonial exploitation. This panel invites researchers seeking to revise Southern colonial histories in order to highlight the relevance of other species and/or inter-species relationships in the colonial process. How did colonial administration conceive of responsibility? How did the colonised conceive of theirs and the world which sustained them? Furthermore, focusing responsibility towards other species and environment, our will debate encompass critical and dissident voices. In particular, we would like to focus on the limits of evidence in answering these questions. What kinds of evidence are being used? Assessing environmental histories and the specific contribution anthropology can bring to such a review, the panel will welcome case studies of species' resistances or alliances which altered, if only for a brief time/space, the course of exploitation - be they flowing rivers, impenetrable forests, flies or uncontrollable wildlife.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 31 March, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
By exploring the trajectories of two rivers in the Indian Sundarbans, this paper explains the ways the relationship between rivers, the mangroves/fishes and the human lives have been changing and affecting each other only to turning all the human and nonhuman beings vulnerable to extinction.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the changing relationships between the rivers, mangroves/fishes and the human lives along the watercourses in the Indian Sundarbans. Tracking the history from the colonial period, it looks into the way the British colonial power embarked on its accumulation by ignoring the impending loss of species, environment and biodiversity, and thereby altered the river flows, inter-species relationship and the environment as a whole. Rivers might be an effective lens through which the colonial history of biodiversity in Sundarbans could be explored. This paper tries to understand the ways in which the rivers and rivulets in Indian Sundarbans have been losing their streams and thereby changing the river ecosystem i.e. the relationship between rivers, mangrove/fishes and the human lives since the colonial period. The first part of this research would focus on why the rivers in Sundarbans have been losing their streams, while the second part focuses more on the impact of loss of river streams on biodiversity, inter-species relationship and human lives. The paper will use the ethnographic as well as the archival evidences that have been collected during the period of 2018 -2019. By exploring the trajectories of two rivers, Piyali and Nobipukuria in South 24 Parganas district of Indian Sundarbans, this research explains the way in which the rivers, the mangroves/fishes and the human lives have been changing and affecting each other only to turning all the human and nonhuman beings vulnerable to extinction.
Paper short abstract:
The rubber cycle is well known in historiography for the violence against indigenous and poor settlers who migrated to the Amazon in the late 19th century. In this presentation I address the lesser-known manatee massacre, documented in the work of filmmaker Silvino Santos in the early 20th century.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation I analyze the manatee massacre in the early 20th century, which took place in the Amazon in the context of the rubber economy crisis. My analysis will be based on the testimonies recorded in the work of filmmaker Silvino Santos: "No País das Amazonas".
Paper short abstract:
The relationship of quilombola people from Mituaçu (Paraíba, Brazil) with plants, fish, crabs and the Gramame River is a way to perceive how biodiversity is creatively cultivated and valued in the search for good living in this area since the colonial period.
Paper long abstract:
The living and conviviality are affected by several metamorphoses in Mituaçu — an afro descent community which recognize itself as remnants of quilombo communities — located in the municipality of Conde, Paraíba State, northeast of Brazil. Starting with the colonial process, the metamorphoses reaches the current urban growth and the pollution of the Gramame River. It also comprises the life cycle of the plants, crabs and other beings that inhabit the area. Plants around the houses connect relatives and neighbors when circulating as seedlings/gifts. Wild plants — such as the xenxém onion — reveal healing knowledge through the myths. But plants also tell stories of fungal devastation along the time, like the death of mango trees. Likewise, the life cycle of the fish and the annual migration phenomenon (“andada”) of the crabs are forms to indicate the periods of fishing and gathering activities of the quilombolas. But the recently death of aquatic life due to the leaking of caustic soda and dumping of cellulose in the Gramame River, also inform about the new strategies of the community with the environment. Here, we focus on the long trajectory of the quilombola’s knowledge developed with plants, crustaceans and fish. As an element of local identity of quilombola and also indigenous communities along the South coast of Paraíba State, the relationship with different kinds of plants, as well as with fish, crabs and the Gramame River, shows us how biodiversity is creatively cultivated and valued in the search for good living in these territories over time.