Perceptions through artwork: children’s understanding of elephants and human-elephant interactions in Balasore, India

ABSTRACT

Several studies have analyzed perceptions of adults regarding human-elephant conflict, but only a few have considered children as stakeholders. This research note attempted to understand young stakeholder perspectives about elephants for the purpose of proposing appropriate and contextual tools of conservation education and favorable human-elephant interactions. The study employed a draw-and-write method with 47 teenaged children from villages near a migratory corridor in the Balasore district of Odisha state in India. Through content analysis of the artworks, several references to negative interactions between humans and elephants (e.g., elephants raiding crops, damaging houses, and breaking trees; elephants and humans inflicting injuries on each other), vulnerability indicators, and community responses were noticed. The gender of participants also emerged as a significant factor in the production of different perceptions. Elephant tuskers engaging in hostile activities and people chasing elephants were mostly depicted by boys, whereas girls illustrated people watching helplessly or guarding property.

KEYWORDS:

• Human-elephant conflict
• conservation education
• coexistence
• drawing
• children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).