This project is situated at the meeting points of the indigenous, scientific, and Indian Ocean worlds. It aims to provide a historical and anthropological account of marine species and their cosmologies based on an ethnographic study of the coral habitats in the Lakshadweep Islands of India. By tracing stories of sea turtles, corals, and cowries, the project examines how their materialities constituted habitation with and relations to humans in this archipelago. It explores their connection to the histories of trade and navigation in the Indian Ocean littoral zone.
Turtle shells were traded, and their meat was used by islanders for caulking sewn boats. In the recent past—especially after turtles became recognized as an ecological keystone species—there was an excessive migration of green turtles to the Lakshadweep lagoons. To the dismay of conservationists, the islanders villainized the turtles because they ate the seagrass meadows which are vital habitats for several marine critters. The project investiates such frictions and confluences that arise when modern ecological regimes of species conservation co-evolve with historical, lived, and indigenous forms of existence. It relies on comparing ethnographic stories and natural histories of these species with archival and archaeological sources in order to understand the question of survival in a symbiotic habitat. By exploring the cosmologies of movement and habitation in sea and island worlds, the project aims to contribute to methodological discussions on matter, species, and time.