Maria Chauveau

Maria Chauveau’s research focuses on the relationships between societies and their environment, and more specifically on the relationships between humans and non-humans.

Since 2014, she has been reflecting on the changes taking place in terms of practices and representations in the relationships that human societies have with the animals in their environment. Investigated since her master’s thesis at Paris Descartes University, these questions provided the guiding thread for her doctoral thesis on the Bishnois of Rajasthan, which she defended in 2021 at the University of Perpignan Via Domitia. As part of her doctoral research, Maria Chauveau sought to describe and analyze the relationship that members of this religious community, founded in the 15th century in the Thar Desert by Sri Jambeshwar ji, have with the environment, fauna, and flora. Based on a specific doctrine and twenty-nine precepts, several of which codify relations with animals and trees, Bishnoism advocates an ethic of life in accordance with these precepts. His thesis work highlighted the confrontation between this community’s specific religious ideology—from the perspective of its human/non-human relationships—and the socio-economic and environmental challenges and changes of the contemporary world.

In 2022 and then in 2023, two postdoctoral contracts at the EFEO enabled Maria Chauveau to extend and deepen her research on this topic in light of the upheavals caused by the expansion of borehole irrigation systems and the productivist agricultural practices they entail. These transformations underway in the arid areas of Rajasthan where the Bishnois live raise striking questions not only about their relationship with others, both human and non-human, but also about their attachment to certain doctrinal precepts that form the basis of Bishnoism and their identity. Given that these new circumstances are giving rise to new ways of “being, living, and relating,” Maria Chauveau focuses in particular on the production of narratives and the creation of new ontologies that result from them.

In parallel with her work on the Bishnoi community, Maria Chauveau is interested in alternative interspecies collectives that are currently being experimented with, formed, and established in various regions of India. In 2024 and 2025, she spent two three-month periods at an animal rescue center/sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh, a place where the protagonists are reconnecting with lifestyles and skills that enable them to rebuild their relationship with the natural environment and animals.

• 2011, Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Social Sciences, Paris Descartes University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences – Sorbonne, Paris
• 2012, Master’s 1 in Ethnology “Research,” Paris Descartes University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences – Sorbonne, Paris
• 2013, Master’s Degree in Ethnology “Research,” Paris Descartes University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences – Sorbonne, Paris
• 2021, PhD in Ethnology and Anthropology. Thesis: “The Bishnoi of Rajasthan, between transmission, change, and identity claims: ethnography of a community committed to the protection of gazelles and trees”, University of Perpignan Via Domitia

Translated with DeepL.com