NBSEAS talks to Jonathan Saha on “Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar”

Colonial Myanmar was teeming with animals, each wild and domesticated. But few histories have devoted shut consideration to the significance of animals to British colonial rule in Myanmar. Jonathan Saha’s new ebook, Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar (Cambridge UP, 2021), does precisely this. In keeping with Saha, imperialism was an “interspecies affair”. Colonial empires would have been not possible with out the human mobilization and administration of varied animal species to first conquer, after which to keep up these empires. Saha brings collectively the rising area of animal research with the extra established area of postcolonial research to supply a brand new historical past of colonial Myanmar the place the connection between people and animals is entrance and centre. In doing so, Saha highlights the significance of the lives of “non-human” animals in how we perceive Southeast Asian historical past.

Patrick Jory teaches Southeast Asian Historical past within the Faculty of Historic and Philosophical Inquiry on the College of Queensland. He may be reached at: [email protected]