When animals kill people: a diversity of viewpoints and experiences around what might be called a catastrophe in Bardiya (south-west Nepal)
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jun 19, 2024
- Source
- ORBi
- Keywords
- Language
- English
- License
- Unknown
- External links
Abstract
peer reviewed / While the term 'catastrophe', which can be translated into Nepali as 'āpatti/आपि$' (Turner, 1931, p. 35) or 'durgati/द"ग$ित' (ibid., p. 315) is absent from the interviews I have been conducting for five years now in Nepal around Bardiya National Park (BNP) on the subject of human-animal encounters, the definition given in the western world still seems accurate. The so-called Human-Wildlife Conflicts (HWC) in Bardiya can be seen as "brutal events that upset the course of things, often causing death and/or destruction", as "accidents of great proportion" (CNRTL). In these encounters, which sometimes lead to death, it is clear that the terms unexpected, sudden, fear and violence are used. Psychomotor therapist and anthropologist, I study in my PhD the relations between humans and wild animals (tigers, rhinos, elephants, leopards, crocodiles mainly) in and around the BNP, particularly the experiences before, during and after they meet. As part of these conferences, my presentation, based on more than a year's fieldwork and using a social science methodology (participant observation, semi-structured interviews, observations/descriptions, linguistic analysis, etc.), aims to question the term 'catastrophe' in this situation of encounters, since certain elements do not fit with it. It seems impossible to use the term correctly without specifying the type of event (attack or simple encounter, first time or not, endangerment or misfortune?), the resources of the person concerned (compensations after?) and the job they perform (benefits or not from wildlife?), but also the way in which this person recovers from this encounter (storytelling, valorization…), the way in which the event is broadcast or dramatized (newspapers, admiration…). Indeed, not all human-animal encounters are “conflicts”, and they do not all result in “death and/or destruction.” Second, not all of my informants see themselves as victims, or sometimes even the situations as accidents. Finally, even if tensions have increased significantly in Bardiya the last years, the way in which they are managed by the State does not necessarily suggest a “brutal event” and could be seen as a way of domination, in the context of a catastrophe which does not end, without going back… Following on from a conference given on the theme of crises three years earlier, I intend to address how these encounters represent ruptures (ecological, financial, political, social, psychocorporal) for humans living in Bardiya and in particular how the points of view/subjectivities around what we could call “catastrophe” (or rather catastrophes) vary and are central.
