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Waiting for the season-birds: climate change in the Eastern Himalayas through a multispecies lens
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posted on 2023-06-09, 04:47 authored by Alex AisherIn the tribal state of Arunachal Pradesh in the Eastern Himalayas, a biologically rich but under- researched area of South Asia, climate change is already influencing the migration, hibernation and reproduction cycles of animals. This is already having significant knock-on effects for indigenous cultivators in the region. Responding to recent calls for social scientific study of climate change from the inside this paper examines indigenous perceptions of changes in the migration and hibernation of five birds, an insect and frog—all identified in local taxonomies as season-birds (debey-patah). Through a multispecies lens, the paper examines how observed changes in the behaviour of these companion species produce friction as they scrape and grind against established temporal imaginaries carried in oral narrative accounts of the origin of rice and the multispecies practice of cultivating rice. An indigenous cosmological portrait arises of climate change in the Eastern Himalayas as a threat to a more-than-human social contract between swidden cultivators and the surrounding landscape. Canonical indigenous oral narratives depicting seasonal task schedules serve variously to channel, trigger, and guide human perceptions and adaptations to climate change.
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Publication status
- Published
Presentation Type
- paper
Event name
Anthropology, Weather and Climate Change 2016Event location
The British MuseumEvent type
conferenceEvent date
27-29 May 2016Department affiliated with
- Anthropology Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for World Environmental History Publications
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2017-01-17Usage metrics
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