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Paper short abstract:

Drawing from ethnographic and archival work (2021-2023) on elephant lifeworlds in Indian state of Assam, this article aims to make sense of the other-than-human lives of wild Asian elephants in the Indian/ Assam plantationocene (1850s-Present) .

Paper long abstract:

The erstwhile ‘elephant nation’ of India-China-Myanmar-Nepal, where wild Asian elephants once roamed freely stands severely fragmented and deteriorated today. While the ‘Anthropocene’ is widely circulated as the generic marker for this rupture of elephant lives, an investigation of environmental histories of colonial and postcolonial policies and practices in this region (1850s- present) directs towards a certain ‘Plantaionocene’ to be responsible. Drawing from ethnographic and archival work (2021-2023) on elephant lifeworlds in Indian state of Assam, this article aims to make sense of the lives of wild Asian elephants in the plantationocene. The British occupation of Assam (1826-1947) set forth a deforestation-led ‘plantation logic’ of producing capital goods (tea, timber, oil, coal) by simultaneously ‘uprooting’ and ‘replanting’ human (tribal migrants) and other-than-human (elephant) labour. In the post-colonial era (1947-present), the national and sub-national interests trumped the requirements for ‘good life’ for elephants in Assam and elsewhere. With the continuation of the ‘plantation logic’ of expanding capital, elephants now lead an uncertain life and have literally become denizens of Assam plantations. With rapid adaptations, their lives (feeding, moving, resting, social interactions) are now unfolding outside their ‘animal places’ (forest) and in ‘beastly places’ of plantations and paddy fields. Living such a life in a plantation landscape also signifies increasingly stressful encounters with people. Thus, the long-living elephant bodies with long-term memories, themselves, have become historical markers of the plantationocene. While the literature on plantationocene is flourishing, this work adds the novelty of understanding this through the other-than-human lives of Assamese wild elephants.