Securing connectivity: conservation territorialisation, power and elephant corridors in rural south India

This thesis examines the multiple dimensions of elephant corridors, focusing on how they are secured and governed as well as the rural and socio-ecological contexts in which these processes unfold. Drawing on political ecology, agrarian studies, and critical conservation scholarship, it analyses how wildlife corridors function not only as ecological interventions but also as instruments through which conservation NGOs and the state project, consolidate, and exercise territorial power. I argue that the global rise of connectivity conservation represents a contemporary form of territorialisation, whereby land and landscapes are reordered through mapping, regulation, and the redefinition of rights and resource use. Building on scholarship on internal territorialisation and conservation governance, the thesis shows how both state and non-state actors deploy corridors to assert control over space, often operating through legal, bureaucratic, and scientific frameworks. These processes are further reinforced by epistemic communities that shape conservation knowledge and policy where simplified corridor narratives become hegemonic and resistant to competing land-use claims. Through an in-depth empirical study from southern India, the thesis introduces the concept of the conservation–agrarian squeeze to explain how conservation interventions intersect with agrarian distress to make land increasingly “available” for conservation acquisition. The thesis also examines the relationship between corridors and ecotourism, showing how corridor-based conservation can override tourism-based land uses despite their shared neoliberal foundations. Finally, it situates corridor expansion within a broader conservation regime through which the Indian state projects conservation success internationally while intensifying control over rural landscapes domestically. In doing so, the thesis demonstrates how elephant corridors have become central to the territorialisation of conservation and the political ecology of state power in contemporary India.