Naveeda Khan | Bovine Tales of Global Warming in Bangladesh

In her field site of the chars in the River Jamuna in Bangladesh, Professor Khan was alerted to the insistent presence of global warming within everyday life through the suffering of cows.The cows’ reactions to heat were readily evident. They stood limply with their skins sagging heavily, breathing rapidly with their tongues sticking out so as to cool themselves.They struggled to get close to the trough of water put out for them or to just sit at every opportunity as if to stand was not just taxing but also heat producing. Through a focus on cows as they traverse chaura households and economies, she explores how we can come to an understanding of the particular entanglement of a local ecology with the planetary crisis of warming and climate change.

Naveeda Khan is associate profesor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.  She has written Muslim Becoming: Aspiration and Skepticism in Pakistan (2012) and edited Beyond Crisis: Reevaluating Pakistan (2010).  She is currently working on a book manuscript on riverine chars in Bangladesh tentatively titled Towards a Romantic Anthropology: River Life and Climate Change in Bangladesh. ​