A Multimodal Study of Human-Elephant Interactions in South India

Asian elephants have been an integral part of social life in India for centuries – as war elephants, participants in temple rituals, heavy laborers, and recently in conservation discourse. But in contrast to other animals which live and work with humans, elephants are perhaps the only “undomesticated” species with which humans share such a close and rich cultural association. Conducting ethnographic fieldwork with humans and elephants in South India, my doctoral research investigates the multisensory ways in which humans and elephants navigate the interspecies field, and discover how the cultural perceptions about elephants shape these interactions.