In Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India's Central Himalayas, Radhika Govindrajan is decidedly uninnocent about the relatedness she explores. To be related to another, she writes, is to be imbricated in their making even when one is indifferent to, disgusted by, or hostile to them, and she points out that mutuality and connection do not imply an erasure of difference or hierarchy (p. 4). For her, relatedness is a compelling concept because it was often invoked by people in describing how their lives were entangled with animals, and because the experience of sharing connection with and attachment to other animals was not restricted to humans alone in the central Himalayas of India.
Animals are rendered in this book as Govindrajan encountered them—as subjects whose agency, intention, and capacity for emotion was crucial in shaping the relationships they made with humans. Each chapter focuses on a different animal, and through...
