Professor Nayanika Mathur gives public lecture at Bristol University

Professor Nayanika Mathur gave a public lecture at the University of Bristol on Wednesday 3 October, entitled: 'The Big Cats and the Indian City: Out-of-place beasts in the Anthropocene'.

This paper studies the presence of leopards in densely populated urban centres of India. It undertakes a comparative ethnography analysis of the sighting, travels, and habitaion of leopards in three cities: Mumbai, Shimla, and Dehradun. There is an assumption that the entry of animals, especially predators, immediately leads to conflict. Furthermore, predatory animals are believed to be limited to rural or peri-urban spaces. In this talk, I challenge both these taken-for granted assumpyions by following the arrival and movements of big cats in three cities of India – Dehradun, Shimla, and Mumbai – and studying the particular responses they have evinced.

Further details of the talk can be found on the University of Bristol website.