Abstract
AbstractElephants were vital agents of empire. In British Burma their unique abilities made them essential workers in the colony’s booming teak industry. Their labour was integral to the commercial exploitation of the country’s vast forests. They helped to fell the trees, transport the logs and load the timber onto ships. As a result of their utility, capturing and caring for them was of utmost importance to timber firms. Elephants became a peculiar form of capital that required particular expertise. To address this need for knowledge, imperial researchers deepened their scientific understanding of the Asian elephant by studying working elephants in Burma’s jungle camps and timber yards. The resulting knowledge was contingent upon the conscripted and constrained agency of working elephants, and was conditioned by the asymmetrical power relationships of colonial rule.
Highlights
Writing in the interwar years about his life working in the timber industry of colonial Burma during the late nineteenth century, John Nisbet recalled how Mounggyi, having been one of the best-natured and tamest elephants he had known, became unmanageable due to a bout of musth
Elephants became a peculiar form of capital that required particular expertise. To address this need for knowledge, imperial researchers deepened their scientific understanding of the Asian elephant by studying working elephants in Burma’s jungle camps and timber yards
Historians today often find the idea of animal agency to be contentious, it was plain to Nisbet that the large tusker had agency
Summary
Writing in the interwar years about his life working in the timber industry of colonial Burma during the late nineteenth century, John Nisbet recalled how Mounggyi, having been one of the best-natured and tamest elephants he had known, became unmanageable due to a bout of musth. Writing about her interactions with elephants in Rangoon, at around the same time that Nisbet was working in the timber yards, the celebrated Victorian travel writer Annie Brassey recounted the wilful behaviour of these captive animals. In a pithy article on agency in environmental history, Linda Nash uses the example of tidewater rice cultivation on the Georgia coast in the United States to illustrate this point This large-scale hydraulic system was not purely the result of the intentional acts of human agents, but the product of complex interactions between humans and the environment, the latter structuring activity and influencing human decisions.[10] Timothy Mitchell has shown how the building of the Aswan Dam, a landmark technocratic development project in post-war Egypt, was shaped and undermined by the humble mosquito.[11] In both of these case studies the authors found it unhelpful to describe the human, or the environment, or the insects, as actors possessing agency. Elaborating on the post-humanist theoretical work of Donna Haraway, Nicole Shukin and Karen Barad throughout, the history of working elephants in British Burma presented here reveals the human–animal encounters that were constitutive of scientific knowledge
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
