Please join us for this Resources, Environment and Development (RE&D) Research Notes webinar by guest Dr Michele Lobo.

Abstract

This paper uses a place-based approach to explore tiger atmospheres in the Sundarbans, a transboundary environmental commons and major climatic hotspot in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta of India and Bangladesh. I argue that affects of greed (lobh), fear (bhaya), respect (srodhya) and trust (biswas) entangled with the tiger subject produce atmospheres that contribute to novel theoretical as well as empirical insights into co-belonging and intersectional multispecies justice. The paper explores these atmospheres through multi-sited ethnographic research that includes embodied observations, photographs, 34 in-depth interviews and focus groups with impoverished and racialised low-caste Hindus (Dalits/Scheduled Castes), Adivasis (Indigenous peoples) and Muslim forest-dwellers in India and Bangladesh. Encountering the Bengal Tiger through attention to more-than-human geographies, animal atmospheres and subaltern stories unsettles macro-narratives of forest conservation, wildlife management and vulnerability to climate change in a critical zone of the Bengal Delta.

Bio

I am a social and cultural geographer at Deakin University exploring race, encounter and belonging amid anthropogenic climate change in Australia, India and Bangladesh. I serve as Editor, Social & Cultural Geography, Editorial Board Member, Australian Geographer, Editor, Book Reviews/Critical Dialogues, Postcolonial Studies and Chair, Equity Reference Group, Institute of Australian Geographers. I have held 3 prestigious grants (ARC DECRA, ARC Discovery, Australia India Council-Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and published more than 60 Scholarly outputs including 3 books as well as articles in several high-impact journals.

Zoom details Meeting ID: 875 8883 3943 Password: 460636 https://anu.zoom.us/j/87588833943?pwd=bEZDZU1RTHJaYVpOK1hlWUtsNnNOQT09