From Elephants to a chat group: tracing more-than-human networks in Sri Lanka’s human–elephant conflict

Abstract

Human elephant conflict research in Sri Lanka is marked by a divide between ecological studies that pursue objectivist aims such as tracking elephant movements and socio-cultural studies that focus on perceptions, governance, and lived experience, a separation that persists even when these approaches are described as integrated. This study applies Actor Network Theory (ANT) to a 2023 case in Puliyankulama, where a fatal elephant encounter set in motion a series of events that led villagers to establish a WhatsApp group for real time alerts. Using ethnographic observation, interviews, and media analysis, the study traced human and non-human actors as they shaped the evolving response network. Findings show that the WhatsApp group became a vital communication link enabling faster sharing of elephant movement information, while at the same time creating new issues such as the spread of sensitive personal details and declining trust among participants. These contrasting effects emerged from the same shifting socio technical ecological network that produces the conflict itself. By making these cross domain connections visible without reducing them to a single frame, the study offers conservation research a way to examine integration challenges in complex settings. The paper contributes by providing an ANT informed re description of a real time conflict event, showing how digital infrastructures become active participants in producing safety, risk, and governance, and offering design and conservation practitioners an descriptive frame that foregrounds relational complexity rather than fixed categories or linear explanations.