Talk by Karine Gagné (Sociology & Anthropology, University of Guelph)

PUBLIC RELIGION & ENVIRONMENT IN INNER ASIA
2021-22 UCR Critical Asian Humanities Speaker Series

The region of Zanskar in the Indian Himalayas has recently seen several locust invasions which have compounded steep challenged to agriculturalists. This presentation examines a multispecies connection that developed in a moment of mutual vulnerability. Amid an ever more vulnerable agrarian ecology challenged by anthropocentric rationalities, the locust emerged as a politically and morally charged creature. Against state policies, local farmers have adopted a politic of cohabitation that amounts to a world-making practice that aims to change ways of relating to nonhuman others.

Karine Gagné is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Canada. She is the author of Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas.

Sponsored by Asian Studies, the Center for Ideas & Society, Department of Religious Studies, & Department of Environment, Sustainability and Health Equity

Join meeting: https://ucr.zoom.us/j/99324186732?pwd=VW5LMXRYZ3BldTdzT1M3REszcysvdz09