Nayanika Mathur (University of Oxford) will be visiting Edinburgh on 8 November for a talk co-hosted by EEHN and Social Anthropology.
Mathur will also hold a “meet the author” event earlier that day to discuss Crooked Cats (University of Chicago Press, 2021), hosted by Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology (EdCMA). This event will be open to EEHN members, but is particularly aimed at PhD students (RSVP required due to limited space).
Details of both events are below.
Nayanika Mathur, Comparative Ethnographies of Crooked Beasts: An uncertain method for the climate crisis
8 November 2024 (Chrystal Macmillan Building Seminar Room 1), 15:00-17:00
Abstract: This paper draws a comparison between orcas off the coast of Gibraltar that have been mysteriously attacking boats and big cats in India that are increasingly making prey of humans. The comparison is drawn on the basis of long-term ethnographic research on changing human-animal relations in India. This paper wrestles with the question of how we come to understand and formulate knowledge of uncharacteristic behaviour of nonhuman animals in the present. It is premised on the fact that climate change – in which is included species extinction, biodiversity loss, and a rapidly warming planet – has foundationally impacted human-animal relations. In this climate changed world, storytelling has found a renewed attention from a number of quarters. This ranges from the explosion of cli-fi as a genre to social scientists and humanities scholars speaking of changing the story or finding new stories. This paper takes a very particular approach to storytelling, one that is largely ethnographic and centred on the nonhuman. The traditional ethnographic focus on detailed layered situated accounts is extended to make a case for more creative comparisons that bring climate politics into view. Beyond advocating for the perhaps under-appreciated comparative power of climate ethnographies, this paper also argues for embracing the uncertainty that lurks within these tales of human and nonhuman beasts. Uncertainty, then, is not just the defining feature of our times but is also a critical mode through which knowledge of the climate crisis can be formulated.
Meet the Author: Crooked Cats by Nayanika Mathur
8 November 2024, 11:00-13:00 (GMT)
Practice Suite (1.12), Chrystal Macmillan Building
This event is aimed at PhD students, members of the EdCMA health and environment network, of Edinburgh Environmental Humanities network, of One Health and Society network, and interested students/staff.
Further information and registration instructions are available here. Please register in advance as places are limited.
