Famine and Elephants: Remembering Place-Making Along Travancore’s Forest Fringe

Abstract

This chapter explores a series of personal narratives among migrant settlers situated at the centre of a contested conservation landscape in Kerala, India. Facing starvation and unemployment associated with World War II, impoverished villagers from the plains of Travancore were encouraged by the State to move to its eastern mountain frontier. There they faced an impenetrable forest and the unwelcome presence of crop-raiding elephants. Settler remembrances of this period are dominated by articulations about daily elephant raids and by repeated references to famine. This study shows that memory born out of collective distress plays an important role in how migrant societies reflect on their lives, construct their identity, respond to exigencies and effect land use change. Alongside an analysis of non-human agency and memory, they serve as invaluable tools in understanding contemporary conflicts around conservation.