IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB401335647

Defining the True Hunter: Big Game Hunting, Moral Distinction, and Virtuosity in French Colonial Indochina (2020)

Comparative Studies in Society and History
Volume: 62
Issue: 3
Pages: 651-680

DOI: 10.1017/S0010417520000201

URI: http://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/defining-the-true-hunter-big-game-hunting-moral-distinction-and-virtuosity-in-french-colonial-indochina/DC83CA4EB4EC03370EB68B06826B4D7C

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Environmental history Moral and ethical aspects Colonialism French language France, colonies Human-animal relationships Hunting; trapping 20th century, early Indochina

This article examines the concept of the “true hunter” (vrai chasseur) among big game hunters in French colonial Indochina. Drawing primarily on French language texts published by highly experienced European hunters between 1910 and 1950, it first examines in detail the true hunter ethic, which required hunters to hunt and kill their prey in a “sporting” (sportif) manner. This ethic involved adherence to an expansive and complicated set of rules related to stalking, marksmanship, knowledge possession, restraint, prey selection, choice of firearms and ammunition, and others. True hunting was regarded as by definition difficult and, as is argued, the practical realization of the true hunter ideal entailed not simply engaging in hunting as an activity, but instead successfully performing a very difficult but specific type of killing. The article's second purpose is to engage a paradox associated with the texts, their authors, and the ethic. While critical of other hunters for “unnecessary slaughter,” many killed staggering numbers of animals. This paradox is accounted for by placing the true hunters in the broader social context of colonial Indochina. Both their type of sport hunting and the virtuosity of their killing distinguished them from the indigenous populations that served their hunts and other European hunters. This virtuosity also legitimized the scale of their killing and placed these hunters into a distinctive social and moral community.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB401335647/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Claire Edington; Hans Pols; (2016)
Building Psychiatric Expertise across Southeast Asia: Study Trips, Site Visits, and Therapeutic Labor in French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, 1898–1937 (/isis/citation/CBB623646766/)

Article Aso, Michitake; (2009)
The Scientist, the Governor, and the Planter: The Political Economy of Agricultural Knowledge in Indochina during the Creation of a “Science of Rubber,” 1900--1940 (/isis/citation/CBB000932550/)

Article Nguyen Thi Hoai Phuong; (2023)
Servicing the colonial exploitation: The French establishment and management of Phù Liễn Observatory, 1899–1945 (/isis/citation/CBB512788706/)

Thesis Edington, Claire Ellen; (2013)
Beyond the Asylum: Colonial Psychiatry in French Indochina, 1880--1940 (/isis/citation/CBB001567481/)

Article Dias, Nélia; (2014)
Rivet's Mission in Colonial Indochina (1931--1932) or the Failure to Create an Ethnographic Museum (/isis/citation/CBB001201584/)

Article Testa, David W. del; (1999)
“Imperial Corridor”: Association, Transportation and Power in French Colonial Indochina (/isis/citation/CBB000340243/)

Article Laurence Monnais; Noémi Tousignant; (2016)
The Values of Versatility: Pharmacists, Plants, and Place in the French (Post)Colonial World (/isis/citation/CBB222517323/)

Article Powell, Miles A.; (2016)
People in Peril, Environments at Risk: Coolies, Tigers, and Colonial Singapore's Ecology of Poverty (/isis/citation/CBB221681390/)

Article James Lequeux; (2023)
The total solar eclipse of 9 May 1929: The French expeditions to Poulo Condore Island in French Indochina (/isis/citation/CBB233593596/)

Article Katrina Gulliver; (2020)
Gabrielle Vassal (1880–1959): Collecting specimens in Indochina for the British Museum (Natural History), 1900–1915 (/isis/citation/CBB151868699/)

Article Blanc, Floriane; (2010)
Vectors of French Cultural Imperialism: Training in Medicine and Pharmacy at the Schools of Hanoi and Dakar (1904--1953) (/isis/citation/CBB001000218/)

Chapter Monnais, Laurence; (2013)
“Rails, Roads, and Mosquito Foes”: The State Quinine Service in French Indochina (/isis/citation/CBB001214661/)

Book Jan E. Dizard; Mary Zeiss Stange; (2022)
Hunting: A Cultural History (/isis/citation/CBB921239382/)

Chapter Biggs, David; (2011)
Aerial Photography and Colonial Discourse on the Agricultural Crisis in Late-Colonial Indochina, 1930--1945 (/isis/citation/CBB001221382/)

Article Nivedita Nath; (April 2021)
Imperial Hunting and the Sublime: Race, Caste, and Aesthetics in the Central Himalayas (/isis/citation/CBB248664697/)

Article Ford, Caroline; (2008)
Reforestation, Landscape Conservation, and the Anxieties of Empire in French Colonial Algeria (/isis/citation/CBB001030306/)

Article Mohd Ashraf Wani; Rouf Ahmad Bhat; (2022)
Colonial masculinity and indigenous śikārī: a history of sport-hunting in Kashmir during Dogra rule (/isis/citation/CBB704971209/)

Book Ingram, Darcy; (2013)
Wildlife, Conservation, and Conflict in Quebec, 1840--1914 (/isis/citation/CBB001422396/)

Article Lachapelle, Sofie; Mistry, Heena; (2014)
From the Waters of the Empire to the Tanks of Paris: The Creation and Early Years of the Aquarium Tropical, Palais de la Porte Dorée (/isis/citation/CBB001214542/)

Article Singaravelou, Pierre; (2011)
The Institutionalisation of “Colonial Geography” in France, 1880--1940 (/isis/citation/CBB001034141/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}