Beasts of Ruptured Geographies

Yak herding in the Sikkim Himalaya

Abstract

With dramatic changes in altitude, climate, and vegetation etc. over very small distances, the Sikkim Himalayan highlands have been a theatre of distinctive physical as well as socio-ecological processes. These despite being not densely populated have been the conduit of trans-ecological exchanges over centuries, thus, registering its share of seasonal foot-falls. Consequently, making this fragile mountain ecosystem an area of humane wilderness rather than an absolute wildscape which has been significant but interfered.

This paper is an attempt to trace migrating memories with the study of space-relation by looking at the Himalayan borderland as homeland. The study incorporates participant observation to snow-ball sampling where yaks and yak-herders are the foci. It is an inquiry into how political events in the area transformed both human and non-human dimensions of the borderland where Yaks remained the symbolic but the (among) the most affected creature.