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Wild Pigs and Kings Remembered Landscapes in Rajasthan
Author(s) -
Gold Ann Grodzins,
Gujar Bhoju Ram
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1997.99.1.70
Subject(s) - politics , deforestation (computer science) , democracy , work (physics) , habitat , ethnology , sociology , history , environmental ethics , criminology , geography , political science , ecology , law , biology , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , computer science , programming language
Based on interviews with elderly persons in rural Rajasthan, in northern India, this essay explores some ways that memories impinge on present and future lives and landscape. Simultaneously it seeks to disclose collaborative research processes through lengthy interview passages. Farmers' memories of wild pigs and local kings are the specific focus: memories remain vivid of the destruction pigs could work on crops, and the rulers who forbid pig killing at the same time exorbitantly taxed the grain pile. Although rapid deforestation has destroyed wild pigs' habitat, and democracy has disempowered former rulers, the politics of ecological deterioration have ongoing consequences.