Elephants and Empire in Colonial Burma: Exhibiting Historical Photographs in Myanmar and the UK

殖民统治促使缅甸在十九世纪末和二十世纪初发生了戏剧性的生态变化。这一变化的后果之一是缅甸大象数量目前处于岌岌可危的境地。他们的不安全主要是因为失去了栖息地、狩猎和捕杀野生大象以从事木材工作。两者都是帝国时期林业政策的遗产。今天，缅甸的亚洲象数量位居第二，据估计，有5000头半圈养状态的工作象，4000头仍在野外。在20世纪30年代的鼎盛时期，缅甸有7000到10000头大象在工作。从我的研究项目《缅甸殖民地动物史》(AH/L014939/1)的研究结果可以明显看出，在英国的统治下，野生大象和工作大象之间的平衡发生了决定性的转变。在更广泛的范围内，亚洲象被国际自然保护联盟列为濒危物种。在这种情况下，饲养工作大象的半圈养形式为帮助保护整个物种提供了一些前景。谢菲尔德大学缅甸木材大象项目正在进行的研究探索了如何提高该国半圈养大象的死亡率和繁殖力。通过他们的研究，他们希望缓解目前由于捕捉替代工作大象的需求而给剩余的野生象群带来的一些压力。我的项目旨在提高人们对缅甸大象种群历史的认识，以及英国帝国主义在其中所扮演的角色。它还寻求在围绕环境正义和殖民遗产的辩论中框定正在进行的保护大象的努力，促进关于前帝国列强对多数世界生态退化的责任的辩论。与此同时，该项目将向帮助保护缅甸大象的项目的观众宣传。该项目将通过展示两次世界大战期间殖民时期缅甸大象工作的历史照片来提高人们对缅甸大象的认识，促进对缅甸大象的辩论，并向他们提供支持。这次免费公开展览将在利兹大学举行，然后移师仰光，由缅甸唯一一家致力于摄影的非营利性画廊缅甸Deitta主办。在仰光的展览结束后，这些照片将被送往青山山谷大象营地，这是一个位于掸邦南部卡劳附近的退休工作大象保护区。一旦到达那里，它们将成为教育展示的一部分。这些照片是在我担任研究员期间在伦敦大都会档案馆进行研究时被发现的。照片的全部收藏，展品将从其中挑选，保存在钢铁兄弟有限公司的档案中，该公司是一家在缅甸殖民时期经营的英国木材公司。为了向研究人员免费提供所有这些图像，研究人员将对它们进行扫描，并将其存储在利兹大学托管的在线档案中。保存在这个档案中的图像将对环境历史学家、帝国历史学家、视觉文化学者和从事缅甸研究的专家有用。

Colonial rule precipitated dramatic ecological change in Myanmar during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. One of the consequences of this change is the current precarious position of Myanmar's elephant populations. Their insecurity is primarily the result of a loss of habitat, hunting and the capture of wild elephants for timber work. Both are legacies of imperial-era forestry policies. Today Myanmar has the second largest Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) population, with an estimated 5000 working elephants kept in a state of semi-captivity and 4000 remaining in the wild. At its peak in the 1930s, there were between 7000 and 10000 working elephants in Myanmar. It is evident from the findings of my research fellowship 'An Animal History of Colonial Burma' (AH/L014939/1) that under British rule the balance of wild to working elephants shifted decisively against the former. More widely, Asian elephants are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as an endangered species. In this context, the form of semi-captivity in which working elephants are kept offers some prospect for helping to protect the species as whole. Ongoing research by the Myanmar Timber Elephant project at the University of Sheffield has looked into ways of improving the mortality and fertility of semi-captive elephants in the country. Through their research they hope to relieve some of the current pressures put on the remaining wild herds created by the demand to capture replacement working elephants. My project aims to raise awareness of the history of Myanmar's elephant population, and the role of British imperialism within it. It also seeks to frame ongoing attempts to protect elephants within debates around environmental justice and colonial legacies, facilitating a debate about former imperial powers' responsibility for ecological degradation in the Majority World. At the same time the project will signpost audiences to projects helping to protect Myanmar's elephants.The project will raise awareness of, facilitate debate about, and signpost support for, Myanmar's elephants through an exhibition displaying historical photographs of working elephants in colonial Burma in the interwar years. The free public exhibition will be held at the University of Leeds and then move to Yangon, where it will be hosted by the country's only not-for-profit gallery dedicated to photography, Myanmar Deitta. Following the end of the exhibition in Yangon, the photographs will go to the Green Hill Valley Elephant Camp, a sanctuary for retired working elephants near Kalaw in the Southern Shan States. Once there they will form part of an educational display. The photographs were uncovered during my fellowship whilst I was conducting research in the London Metropolitan Archives. The full collection of 64 photographs, from which the exhibits will be selected, are in the archives of Steel Brothers and Company Ltd., a British timber firm that operated in colonial Burma. In order to make all these images freely available for researchers they will be scanned and stored on an online archive hosted by the University of Leeds. The images held in this archive will be useful for environmental historians, imperial historians, visual culture scholars, and specialists working in Myanmar studies.