2021/08/09 by Arnab Dey · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Computer science #Geography
paper · doi:10.4324/9780429431012-26
openalex publication_date 2021/08/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Environmental management in colonial South Asia was at once a biological, economic, social, and political process. It is helpful, therefore, to understand its history as a pastiche: a complex interplay of post-Enlightenment political ideology, race theory, physiocratic ‘improvement’ missions, biomedical presumptions, and agro-economic manoeuvers of landscapes and lives. These principles and practices dovetailed and diverged given the priorities in India of the British Empire, which also borrowed from and jettisoned older, precolonial modes and methods of ecological management as necessary and expedient. This chapter focuses on four broad parameters – forests, water, social unrest, and animals – through which this history unfolded and materialised.