Mahesh Rangarajan Research Articles

The Habit in Cohabitation

As human and nonhuman animals increasingly share space, however enthusiastically or reluctantly, the concepts of habit, cohabitation, and habituation bear further scrutiny when applied to these makeshift arrangements. Even when researchers have critically examined the work these terms do in discussions of more-than-human relations, they have tended to ignore the temporalities embedded in "habit" and its cognates. A discourse of habit traps animals in an ethnographic present of the sort long critiqued within anthropology in its application to humans. One alternative is to approach more-than-human animals as what Mahesh Rangarajan calls "animals with histories," instead of treating them as members of species with fairly set characteristics who make cameo appearances in ecological histories, ethnographies, and field studies. Studies of human-tiger relations in Rajasthan, India, and auto-ethnographic material on human-bear relations in Alaska suggestively illustrate what a historical orientation has to offer by way of moving discussions of multispecies relations beyond a colonial discourse of encounter and the blurring of human/nonhuman boundaries. Acknowledgment that nonhuman animals have historically inflected backstories, even when their memories and experiences are not accessible to humans, is a step in the direction of more expansive possibilities for co-worlding.

Book Review: Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan, eds, Shifting Ground: People, Animals and Mobility in India’s Environmental History and Mahesh Rangarajan, Nature and Nation: Essays on Environmental History

Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan, eds, Shifting Ground: People, Animals and Mobility in India’s Environmental History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, 310 pp.; and Mahesh Rangarajan, Nature and Nation: Essays on Environmental History, Ranikhet: Permanent Black in association with Ashoka University, 2015, 346 pp.

Nature Without Borders. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, M. D. Madhusudan, and Ghazala Shahabuddin. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2014. 270 pp. Table, notes, and index. Cloth $39.95.

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook Reviews Nature Without Borders. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, M. D. Madhusudan, and Ghazala Shahabuddin. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2014. 270 pp. Table, notes, and index. Cloth $39.95.Eric StrahornEric StrahornFlorida Gulf Coast University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 20, Number 4October 2015 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 8Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/envhis/emv098 Views: 8Total views on this site HistoryPublished online July 29, 2015 © 2015 The Author. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Selected Works of C Rajagopalachari Vol II, 1921–22. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, N. Balakrishnan and Deepa Bhatnagar. pp. 511. Hyderabad, Black Swan, 2014.

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Selected Works of C. Rajagopalachari. Volume I 1907–21. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, N. Balakrishnan, Deepa Bhatnagar. pp. xxvi, 432. Hyderabad, Black Swan, 2014

Selected Works of C. Rajagopalachari. Volume I 1907–21. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan, N. Balakrishnan, Deepa Bhatnagar. pp. xxvi, 432. Hyderabad, Black Swan, 2014

India's Environmental History: From Ancient Times to the Colonial Period (Vol. 1); Colonialism, Modernity, and the Nation (Vol. 2). Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012. vii + 464 pp. and ix + 614 pp. Maps, tables, notes, and bibliography. Cloth $149.95.

<i>India's Environmental History: From Ancient Times to the Colonial Period (Vol. 1); Colonialism, Modernity, and the Nation (Vol. 2)</i>. Edited by Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012. vii + 464 pp. and ix + 614 pp. Maps, tables, notes, and bibliography. Cloth $149.95.

The Environment and world history

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables Preface Acknowledgments Part One: Overview 1. Introduction: World History and Environmental History Kenneth Pomeranz 2. The Big Story: Human History, Energy Regimes, and the Environment Edmund Burke III 3. Toward a Global System of Property Rights in Land John F. Richards Part Two: Rivers, Regions, and Developmentalism 4. The Transformation of the Middle Eastern Environment, 1500 B.C.E.-2 C.E. Edmund Burke III 5. The Transformation of China's Environment, 1500-2 Kenneth Pomeranz 6. The Rhine as a World River Mark Cioc 7. Continuity and Transformation: Colonial Rice Frontiers and Their Environmental Impact on the Great River Deltas of Mainland Southeast Asia Michael Adas Part Three: Landscapes, Conquests, Communities, and the Politics of Knowledge 8. Beyond the Colonial Paradigm: African History and Environmental History in Large-Scale Perspective William Beinart 9. Environmental Histories of India: Of States, Landscapes, and Ecologies Mahesh Rangarajan 10. Latin American Environmental History: A Shifting Old/New Field Lise Sedrez 11. The Predatory Tribute-Taking State: A Framework for Understanding Russian Environmental History Douglas R. Weiner Select Bibliography List of Contributors Index

Jungle Book: Authoritarian Conservation and its Alternatives

Making Conservation Work: Securing Biodiversity in this New Century, edited by Ghazala Shahabuddin & Mahesh Rangarajan. Ranikhet (Uttaranchal): Permanent Black, (298 pages). There is a crisis in Indian nature conservation. For years now community conservation has seemed to many of us to have been consolidating its position as the only ethical and workable model for conserving biodiversity in the developing world. The fortress conservation model whereby protected areas are garrisoned for total exclusion of local people and their extractive activities had been thoroughly critiqued and seemed to have been consigned to a place in history along with colonial game reserves. Yet we are now witnessing a swing back to exclusionary thinking on the part of many conservationists.

Reflections on: "Indigenous Rights and Interests in WildCountry in Australia" by Ghazala Shahabuddin

Ghazala is co-editor with Mahesh Rangarajan, of Making Conservation Work, Permanent Black, 2007, reviewed in this volume. She is commenting here after reading the interview with Anthony Esposito (National Manager of the Indigenous Conservation Program, The Wilderness Society) recorded by Heather Goodall, January 2007.

India's Wildlife History. By Mahesh Rangarajan. Illustrations, bibliography People, Parks and Wildlife: Towards Co-existence. By Vasant Saberwal, Mahesh Rangarajan and Ashish Kothari

<i>India's Wildlife History.</i> By Mahesh Rangarajan. Illustrations, bibliography <i>People, Parks and Wildlife: Towards Co-existence.</i> By Vasant Saberwal, Mahesh Rangarajan and Ashish Kothari

The Oxford Anthology of Indian Wildlife. Volume I: Hunting and Shooting. Mahesh Rangarajan

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksThe Oxford Anthology of Indian Wildlife. Volume I: Hunting and Shooting. Mahesh Rangarajan Richard G. CossRichard G. Coss Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 76, Number 1Mar., 2001 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/393769 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 2001 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Fencing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Provinces, 1860–1914. By Mahesh Rangarajan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. xii + 245 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. $23.00

The extensive woodlands of the Central Provinces of India became vital to imperial interests in the late nineteenth century, and this book argues that it was protection of these interests, rather than conservation per se that was at the heart of imperial forestry in India.

Book Reviews : MAHESH RANGARAJAN, Fencing the Forests: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Provinces, 1860-1914, OUP, Delhi, 1996, pp. xii + 245, Rs. 395

Book Reviews : MAHESH RANGARAJAN, Fencing the Forests: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Provinces, 1860-1914, OUP, Delhi, 1996, pp. xii + 245, Rs. 395