Partnership Building in Extreme Situations: Calling, Moral Emotions and Community Engagement

Abstract

In this study we address two important questions: (1) why professionals go beyond the technical jurisdictions of their profession to enter physically dangerous situations; and (2) how they resolve these dangerous situations through partnership building with the local communities. We explore these questions in the empirical context of dangerous and conflict ridden big cat rescue operations conducted by wild-life veterinary doctors in Northern India. These veterinarians lead rescue teams formed to safely catch and release leopards or tigers which stray into human settlements, leading a tense and conflict ridden situation, with inherent physical dangers for the animal, villagers and the rescue team. Our findings show that veterinary doctors are driven by their deep sense of moral calling, rooted in their ethics of environmental conservation and protection of these apex predators, to enter these dangerous crisis situations. In de-escalating the placial conflict, the veterinarians and rescue team engages with spatial, material and relational work. Further, we also find that the veterinarians deploy an array of transient moral emotions to build temporary partnerships with the local community, allowing them to resolve the crisis and prevent the killing of the animal. Our findings contribute to the literatures on ethics of encounters, professional calling and moral emotions.