Place, Science, and Snow Leopards in India

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Abstract

This paper considers the development of snow leopard science in India, from 1967 to 2012, and is an offshoot of a joint project with Elena Songster. Indian snow leopard science occurred in a matrix of interactions between international conservation NGOs, state actors, non-Indian scientists, Indian scientists or field assistants, and the local people living in the field site. I will describe how these interactions contributed to particular types of scientific knowledge and conservation policies that are helping to transform conservation biology. It is easy to view snow leopard science in India as a triumph of localizing the production of scientific knowledge. While US scientists such as George Schaller and Rodney Jackson were pioneers in the field, over the last twenty-five years, Indian scientists have moved to the forefront: the first PhD written on snow leopards was completed by Raghu Chundawat in 1992, and in 2008 Charu Mishra was named the Science and Conservation Director of the US based International Snow Leopard Trust. This version of the “localization” of snow leopard science is too simple, though: while the US Fish and Wildlife Service might see a Delhi-dwelling, Hindi speaking biologist as their “local collaborator” in a Bodhi speaking region of the Himalayas, and the Indian government might see that same scientist as nationalizing the production of knowledge about Indian nature, the people living in snow leopard habitat have different understandings of locality, and of the relationship between snow leopards, science, themselves, and the state. Using oral histories, published scientific literature and government reports, this paper considers the complexity of producing scientific knowledge in the field, in particular in the high Himalayas at the margins of the Indian state.

Author

• Michael Lewis, Salisbury University