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Saha, Jonathan: Global Capital, Local Animal: Some Notes on the Elephant Trade in Colonial Southeast Asia, in Andratschke, Claudia, Hoes, Charlotte Marlene and Krieger, Annekathrin (Eds.): Colonial Dimensions of the Global Wildlife Trade, Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net-ART-Books, 2024 (Veröffentlichungen des Netzwerks Provenienzforschung in Niedersachsen, Volume 6), p. 70–91. https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1415.c20434

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https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1415
ISBN 978-3-98501-262-6 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-98501-263-3 (Softcover)

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07/03/2024

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Jonathan Saha

Global Capital, Local Animal: Some Notes on the Elephant Trade in Colonial Southeast Asia

Studies of the wildlife trade often take a global ambit. In this essay I argue that, alongside this planetary scale, in order to better understand the colonial transformations that were attendant to the sale of animals, historians should pay close attention to the local contexts for the capture and sale of nonhuman creatures. Such a focus enables a keener analysis of the ways animals were commodified and the role of subordinated human labour in the trade. The case of the elephant trade in British dominated southeast Asia during the 1910s provides a rich example to explore these processes and through which to demonstrate the utility of a local focus.