Talk: The Political Lives of Cows, Rivers, and Mountains in Contemporary India

This talk draws on ethnographic fieldwork among gau-rakshaks (cow-protectionists) and ordinary villagers in India?s Central Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to explore the possibilities and limits of more-than-human politics. It seeks to understand how the specific terms on which nonhumans are recognized as political actors shapes the politics of more-than-human politics. More specifically, this talk asks what is at stake for right-wing cow-protectionists in having the cow constitutionally reclassified as ?mother? instead of ?animal?. What does this particular gesture of kinship allow us to understand about the dark side of seemingly expansive political movements grounded in human kin relations with what might be called ?nature?? In this talk, I argue that the grounding of this more-than-human politics in majoritarian ideology not only authorizes violence against those who are deemed enemies of a nation united around the figure of the mother-cow, but also fetishizes and naturalizes feminized bovine bodies and labor in ways that end up entrenching human domination over nature.

Admission/Cost: FREE

Location:
Social Science Building 107
UCSD
San Diego, CA
- [CAMPUS MAP]

Thursday, March 21 - 4:00 PM

For more information, please visit: www.ucsd.edu