Radhika Govindrajan explores the intricacies of human-animal interactions in her book, Animal Intimacies: Beastly Love in the Himalayas.
As published in Nature inFocus on 08 July, 2019.
In 2011, the Census of Marine Life announced that the estimated number of species on our planet is about 8.7 million. Considered one of the most accurate estimations in recent times, this analysis also predicted that within the 8.7 million, animal species accounted for about 7.77 million.
Luxuriating in an urban setup, it is hard for us to imagine that we share this planet with so many other species. For the most part, we are able to get through our day without having to make allowances for its other residents. Even when we account for our animal encounters, they are limited and often by choice. But this is not the case everywhere, and a new book shows us exactly that. In places where lives and livelihoods depend on human-animal interactions, animals come to play a vital role in everyday life.
Animal Intimacies: Beastly Love in the Himalayas, written by anthropologist Dr Radhika Govindrajan, explores the many visible and invisible threads that connect human and animal lives in the Kumaon villages of the Uttarakhand region. Against a rural backdrop, Govindrajan looks at what it means to share space with other species that are at times a source of livelihood, other times a source of despair and some times a projection of the ongoing political and social problems. Observing ways in which interspecies relatedness manifests itself, Govindrajan provides context for various issues like ritual sacrifice, cow protection, human-animal conflict, and rural-urban migration – showing us how nuanced these issues and these relations often are.
Read the complete interview here.