Trying to understand changes in a contemporary pastoral community of Gujarat: from adaptive strategies to the dynamics of Indigenous knowledge

Matthieu Salpeteur
Environmental anthropologist
French national research institute for sustainable development

Date & Time: March 9, 2022 at 04:00 pm
Venue: ATREE Auditorium

Abstract

This talk will be dedicated to presenting the main research lines I have been developing in Gujarat, within the context of a pastoral community, the Rabaris of Kachchh. Focusing on the people still engaged in a nomadic activity and way of life, the objective will be to highlights some of the major dynamics taking place nowadays, in relation i) to land use and the question of securing the rights of access to grazing grounds and perception of environmental changes; ii) to patterns of Indigenous Knowledge transmission across generations and occupation-related groups, and finally iii) to the management and shaping of diversity among domestic animals.

About the speaker

Matthieu Salpeteur is an environmental anthropologist, working at IRD (French national research institute for sustainable development) in the PALOC lab (www.paloc.fr). He holds a PhD in anthropology from the National Museum of Natural History (Paris) and has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the ethnoecology lab of Dr V. Reyes-García (ICTA - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) during four years, and at the CEFE lab (Centre d'écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive) in Montpellier, France, before joining the Institute. Many of his research experiences are based on collaborations with other fields, such as archaeology or ecology.