Barren Frontiers, Pristine Myths: The cultural politics of wildlife conservation in the Indian Trans-Himalaya

By moving away from the ‘parks versus people’ paradigm, my research in the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, Ladakh, reframes thinking concerning the changing relations among states, markets, social groups and their bio-physical environment in the Indian Trans-Himalaya. The framework of cultural politics draws attention to the variety of complex cultural work involved in the conservation contestations in this border region between India and China that has been neglected in traditional political ecology approaches. My ethnographic research focusing on such contingent processes thus argues for treating culturally productive identities, interests and resources as emergent from continuing struggles rather than as pre-determined givens.