David Anderson
Designer Environments in the Circumpolar North
This paper surveys 40 years of applied biological work involving the 'translocation' and
'restoration' of endangered or extinct fauna across the circumpolar North.
For forty years, often taking keen advantage of the authoritarian registers of the Cold War, a
number of experiements have been launched in introducing or 'restoring' extinct or
endangered fauna across the circumpolar. Keynote examples include muskrat, bison,
muskoxen, and even attempts to retrobreed wooly mammoths. This applied biological work
is often justified as an attempt to restore environments to an 'eden-like' state from before
paleolithic human hunters disrupted it. The real-time relocations however disrupt ongoing
human-animal relationships in these regions often governed by indigenous people. The paper
will query the notions of the natural and of restoration as well as the relationships of power
that these notions imply.
Marianne Lien, University of Oslo.
Domestication 'after nature': Textures and temporalities in salmon aquaculture
This paper explores domesticatioin 'after nature'. Drawing on fieldwork on salmon
aquaculture, I explore domestication 'from below', attending to the textures and temporalities
through which human-salmon assemblages are precariously held together.
Significant achievements were made in the study of domestication when nature and culture
represented opposite poles of the human-animal relation, and domestication could be framed
as a significant moment in an imagined evolutionary path towards human cilivilization.
This paper seeks to explore domestication 'after nature'. Dismissing ontological dualisms of
nature and culture, and sharply assymmetrical distributions of agency, I seek to explore
domestication 'from below', asking what are the textures and socio-material qualities that hold
human-animal assemblages together?
The paper draws on extended fieldwork in salmon aquaculture. With a relatively short history,
salmon are still 'newcomers to the farm', and salmon production sites thus offer an
opportunity to study 'animal husbandry in the making'. Yet, what could be seen as a
paradigmatic case of successful 'human control of nature', is also, or perhaps instead, a
precarious assemblage. Drawing attention to the textures and temporalities of contemporary
aquaculture I propose an alternative approach to the history of human-animal domestication.
Jan Peter Loovers, University of Aberdeen.
Relating with Dogs, Fish, and Caribou: An alternative exploration of human-animal
engagements in the Circumpolar North.
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This paper concerns the historical and present-day relations between Gwich'in, dogs, fish, and
caribou. We will discuss how these relations have continued even after dissolving mercantile
relationships.
Dogs have played a significant role in the lives of aboriginal peoples in the circumpolar North.
Dogs have been used for hunting, travelling, and protection. Aboriginal peoples, however,
recount that dogs are an integral part of a larger 'meshwork' between animals and humans.
More specifically, fish and caribou are a significant occurrence in these stories. Building upon
research with the Teetł'it Gwich'in, this presentation will first highlight how the florescence of
the fur trade in the Mackenzie Delta, in the 19th century, owed a great deal to the crafting and
cultivation of these relationships. The tremendous capital risk in this mercantile enterprise
was alleviated through the implementation of an investment practice which took advantage of
this meshwork. Preserved fish were 'banked' by the traders to be fed to the Gwich'in dogs that
were used to hunt caribou whose meat allowed for successful trapping, trade, food, and
transport of fur. Then moving to the present, we will explore how the fur trade has mostly
disappeared and snow mobiles have replaced dog teams and yet, unpredictably, the Gwich'in
continue to cultivate strong human-animal relationships with all parts of this trinity. The
historical and present day relationships between people, dogs, fish and caribou in Teetł'it
Gwich'in country will be positioned so as to demonstrate how these relationships undermine
popular scientific notions of domestication and wildness, and how the cultivation of historical
mercantile relationships could lead towards an understanding of what is at stake for the
Gwich'in if the connections in this mesh dissolve.
Gro Ween, University of Aberdeen.
The Nature of Arctic Domestication
In this paper, human-salmon relations in the High North are employed to destabilise agrarian
perspectives of animal domestication. With Arctic fishermen and reindeer herders in mind, I
discuss key terms associated with different definitions of domestication, such as ‘capture’ and
‘becoming with’.
The agrarian structures entrenched in biological understanding of domestication, places
limitations on the uses of the term for anthropological purposes. As Ingold (2000) has pointed
out, the biological definition reifies an understanding of domestication as a steady increase in
human control over growth and reproduction. Agrarian domestication is closely associated
with selective breeding. Such a definition, places us in a position where we act upon nature,
ignoring how animals act upon us, and ignoring numerous possible forms of existing animal
agency.
Agrarian definitions have recently been challenged by more symmetrical approaches, treating
domestication as a two-way process. Such recent definitions emphasise unintended
consequences rather than human mastery (Cassidy 2007, see also Haraway 2007). In the
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simplest version of such a perspective, even simple hunter-gatherers affect the composition of
populations of animals they rely upon for their existence. Following up the ambition of
symmetry, Ingold has argued the significance of capture for the evolution of domestication.
Capture here situates humans and non-humans in a relational web, where animals and humans
are part of networks of reciprocal interdependency. Capture here, is perceived as a dialogue,
where trust is essential, as a combination of autonomy and dependency. Instances of what
could be described as domestication of salmon and reindeer exemplified in this paper
illustrate the necessity of stressing the knowledge inherent to capture, not simply of the
animal, but of animal travels. Literally, this knowledge brings the animal into human grasp, in
other words, it enables domestication of the animal.
Clinton Westman, University of Saskatchewan.
A lover, not a fighter? The animal as friend and enemy in Cree ontology and beyond
Influential ethnographic studies (Tanner 1979; Brightman 1993) of Cree relations with
animals have focused on their ambivalence, alternately invoking categories such as friendship,
love, pity, enmity, exchange, and deception to explain the dynamic between predator and prey,
spirit and supplicant. I consider the impacts and relevance of this debate within the
Algonquian world and beyond.
Influential ethnographic studies (Tanner 1979; Brightman 1993) of Cree relations with
animals have focused on the ambivalence, alternately invoking categories such as friendship,
love, pity, enmity, exchange, and deception to explain the dynamic between predator and prey,
spirit and supplicant. More recently, the relevance of this dynamic to Amazonian
perspectivism has been considered both by Algonquianists (Hornborg 2008) and
Amazonianists (Fausto 2007). The former has considers Amazonian perspectivism in light of
Algonquian animism and sacred geography, while the latter considers Algonquian hunting
relations as an entry point into Amazonian debates on hunting, cannibalism, commensality,
and war. In all cases the focus is on intersubjective relations within a potentially unstable
ontological frame. I will synthesize and critique this theoretical debate, while relating it to my
own fieldwork, in northern Alberta, on contemporary and historical environmental and
religious change. I consider the ambivalent, unstable relationships described above as one
entry point into querying ideas about domestication, personhood, and other human-animal
entanglements.
Paride Bollettin, Universidade de Sao Paolo
Being human and being animal acording to Central Brazi Mebengokré-Xikrin
The paper aims to reflect on the ways in which Central Brazil Mebengokré-Xikrin indigenous
comunity thinks about members of other living species. It wants to highlight how different
animals contribute to the definition of a network of subjectivities in dialogue and that build
relationships.The paper aims to reflect on the ways in which Central Brazil MebengokréXikrin indigenous comunity thinks about members of other living species. It wants to
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highlight how different animals contribute to the definition of a network of subjectivities in
dialogue that build relationships.
Starting from a fieldwork experience that dates since 2005, the paper intends to present some
significant ethnographic examples that may help to reflect on how Central Brazil
Mebengokré-Xikrin maintain relationships with other living species. Terrestrial animals, fish
and birds appear, both in the narratives and in everyday life, as ones who have a specific
agentivity capable of affecting humans. From these descriptions the paper will show how
these relationships can allow a transformative potential necessary for the formation of
properly mebengokré human beings. Dressing with feathers during a ritual, using the name of
a fish, meeting an animal during the hunt, in this context are specific ways of entering into
dialogues with other living beings in a constant process of formation of the human. In this
way, it appears the need to think about these relationships from a deconstruction of the
nature/culture dichotomy point of view in favor of an increasing numbers of individual
relationships and partnerships.
Vladimir Davydov, Peter the Great Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology
Rethinking human-reindeer relations in the northern Baikal region, Russia
This paper will discuss how Russian ethnography reflected human-animal relations and
domestication in northern Baikal region. It will discuss how the researchers perceived
reindeer and how they saw the difference between the ‘wild’ and ‘domesticated’ reindeer.
The categories such as 'wild' and 'domesticated' reindeer are rooted in the accounts of early
Russian ethnographers. They usually perceived reindeer through the prism of their own
experience of other animals and often assumed that reindeer were similar to small horses that
predetermined the way they interpreted their qualities, needs, movements and relations with
people. Many debates concerning the improvement of reindeer herders' everyday tasks took
place in the region. A number of Russian authors described reindeer herding from the
evolutionist perspective as less developed compared to agriculture and cattle breeding. Some
of them were the proponents of semi-sedentary 'log-houses reindeer herding'. In many cases
they neglected how human-animal relationships were emplaced in northern Baikal landscape.
Human-reindeer relations were never the relations attributed to one certain place, but to a
number of places such as summer and winter pastures, calving territories. Furthermore, these
were always the relations on the move from place to place. The early soviet ethnographic
researches of reindeer herding steadily shifted to 'industrial' paradigm where every animal was
supposed to be counted and measured. This logic was based on the hierarchical view,
neglected the intimate way of inter species gaze and presented reindeer as if they were not
with people but stayed rather separated. It approached reindeer not as 'companions' to people
but rather as 'tools' or 'transport' they employed to move. Even though administrators saw a
reindeer herd as homogenous mass, Evenki reindeer herders perceived it as composed of
animals which had distinctive characters and habits.
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Natasha Fijn, Australia National University.
Living with Dogs: two etho-ethnographic examples from two different ways of being
The focus of this paper is about the connections between humans and other animals with
reference to two disparate ethnographic examples from quite different worldviews,
cosmologies, and landscapes: Mongolian herders from the Khangai mountains and Yolngu
from North-East Arnhem Land and how they interrelate with dogs.
Tim Ingold, within his book 'The Perception of the Environment' (2000), describes a
difference between the depiction of animals in art by Inuit in comparison to art in Aboriginal
Australia and how this demonstrates the difference between an animic and totemic way of
viewing animals. Similarly, the focus of this paper is about the connections between humans
and other animals with reference to two disparate ethnographic examples from quite different
worldviews, cosmologies, and landscapes: Mongolian herders from the Khangai mountains
and Yolngu from North-East Arnhem Land and how they interrelate with dogs.
As indicated by Donald Thomson's ethnographic and zoological work from the 1930s and
1940s, 'wild dogs', or dingoes, were taken from dens as puppies and lived with Yolngu in their
camps, occasionally becoming important hunting companions, although as adults most
returned to the bush. The dogs that inhabit Aboriginal communities are now often a mixture
of dingo and various dog breeds but the close bonds between Yolngu and canines remains.
The dogs are not treated as 'pets' but live in their own packs within the community, primarily
scavenging for food. Yet the dog, as the essence of an ancestral being, is incorporated in
Yolngu song, dance, painting and ceremony. Discussions surrounding the different
relationships and attitudes toward human-nonhuman, domestic-wild and nature-culture are
significant with regard to communities that still hunt and gather, such as the Yolngu, in
comparison to pastoral societies, such as herders from the Khangai in Mongolia.
Ilse Kamerling, University of Aberdeen.
Reindeer herding, agriculture and Sámi-Norse interactions in Iron Age and historical
northern Sweden
Interactions between reindeer herding Sámi and Norse farmers took place at known market
towns. Little is known about interactions outside of the market towns due to scarce
archaeological evidence. A palynological approach is applied here to determine the nature and
timing of cultural interactions.
The provinces of Norrbotten and Västerbotten, Northern Sweden, were originally inhabited by
Sámi (semi-nomadic reindeer herder-hunters). Despite high latitudes, favourable maritime
influences allowed for the development of sedentary farming. In near-coastal areas, settlement
by incoming Norse agriculturalists was initiated at ca AD 500, followed by intensification
during the 12th century AD and extension inland.
Interaction between the Sámi and the Norse agriculturalists is evident from archaeological
finds and references in Norse mythology. Initial contact appears to have been relatively
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friendly: goods were traded in market places and Sámi were allowed to continue hunting in
the cultivated areas. By AD 1300, however, the Sámi of Västerbotten had largely converted to
Christianity and adopted Swedish surnames because those who refused were denied access to
Christian-owned lands. Little is known about Sámi and Norse co-existence in the wider areas
surrounding the market places, mainly due to a lack of archaeological evidence: Sámi used
only few artefacts and especially those involved in reindeer herding do not preserve well.
Apart from finds of Sámi camps, including hearths and slag-rich surfaces, their presence is
difficult to trace.
A palynological approach is applied here to address the issue of the nature and timing of the
cultural interactions. A difficulty comes in discerning and differentiating between the impacts
of the Sámi and the Norse on their environment, when the palynological indications may be
slight and similar for both cultures. In addition to conventional pollen analyses, proxies
including coprophilous fungal spores, microscopic charcoal and sedimentology will also be
presented.
Anita Maurstad, Tromsø Museum.
What's Underfoot? Emplacing Identity in Practice among Horse-Human Pairs.
This multi-species ethnographic study compares and contrasts the kinds of entangled
identities that emerge as horse-rider pairs, together, traverse different types of terrain. Horse
and human are paired together, defined, distinguished, and identified by the environments
they work within.
Previous definitions of domestication that excluded human-animal pair relations are too
restrictive. An exploration of these paired interactions within diverse environments features
emplacement as a changeable and dynamic concept. This multi-species ethnographic study
compares and contrasts the kinds of entangled identities that emerge as horse-rider pairs,
together, traverse different types of terrain. Horse and human are paired together, defined,
distinguished, and identified by the environments they work within. Focusing on the
equestrian sports of Icelandic gaited horse riding, dressage, and endurance riding, the study
demonstrates how different kinds of emplacements engender a sense of mutuality between
horse and rider, not as subject and object but as two intra-active, agentive individuals.
Analysis of narrative data gathered during open-ended interviews, with a sample of 60 people
who participate in different equestrian sports, privileges informants' commonsense,
experiential worlds. The study combines perspectives from the broader fields of practice
theory, environmental communalism, and biosociality. What comes through in the narratives
is a deep sense of entanglement with the horse or a sense of shared identity, 'we-making' or
'withness' when horse and rider take on the challenges of navigating different terrains.
Whether riding in highly circumscribed and well-groomed arenas, traveling to challenging
terrains, or having a versatile outdoors at your door-step, terrain becomes an important
signifier of differences in how co-domestication becomes enacted and expressed.
Emplacement is changeable and dynamic, involving engineering, seeking, or being within
particular landscapes, and also involving, literally and figuratively, physical movement and
the immediacy of the ground underfoot.
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Margareth McKenna, ConTEXT
Bridging the culture-nature clash in human and wildlife entanglements
This paper discusses the spatial dimensions, values, and social norms related to a
contemporary nature-culture clash evident in the human-wildlife conflicts that occur in many
developed communities where human-made structures of wildlife bridges have been built to
protect humans and wildlife.
Anthropologists have studied interactions between humans and domesticated animals;
however, the interactions between humans and wild animal species, referred to as humanwildlife conflicts, call for study. Human-wildlife conflicts occur when humans and animals
are in territorial proximity such as human settlements in forest-edge regions where wild
animals historically roamed but have now become the intruders that challenge the humans.
An anthropological view of space is that it is divided into animal and human spheres, which
leads to the social understanding that animals or humans may be in or out of their respective
environs, then cross a spatial boundary in a culture-nature conflict. Human- made barriers
such as multi-lane highways have fragmented animal habitat, which has led to detrimental
impacts that include increased animal and human mortality due to wildlife-vehicle collisions,
decreased quality of animal habitat, and divided vulnerable wildlife sub-populations. These
outcomes have pressured engineers to mitigate the effects through construction of structures
known as wildlife crossings, above or under roadways to facilitate safe wildlife movement,
increase the amount of habitat for animal species, and reduce habitat fragmentation. The
development of wildlife crossings has brought out individuals' opposing positions based on
underlying values related to wildlife. Wildlife crossings are a modern day exhibit of the
culture-nature clash and have generated new social norms about what wildlife interactions are
acceptable in some spaces, what meanings are attached to these experiences, and what
financial investments should be made to protect wildlife and save human lives in light of
human-wildlife entanglements.
Shingo Odani, Chiba University
Pig Husbandry of the Bosavi in Highlands Fringe of Papua New Guinea
This study focuses on extensive pig husbandry and its changes of the Bosavi society in
Highlands fringe of Papua New Guinea in relation to subsistence and social system, compared
with intensive husbandry of Highlands societies which has been inquired in detail.
This study focuses on pig husbandry and its changes of the Bosavi in Highlands fringe of
Papua New Guinea. Because New Guinea Island locates the east of the Wallace Line, pigs
should be restricted Sus scrofa domesticus. However, around the habitat there are many wild
pigs harmful to cultivation and attacking humans. Intervention to pig reproduction is
minimum, that domestic sows copulate with wild boar in forests, because all male piglets are
castrated to avoid becoming wild. Piglets are fed about 2 months around the owner's house,
and then released to forests with daily feeding. When the owner makes fewer efforts,
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sometimes piglets become wild. When owners still domesticate pregnant sows, piglets will be
domestic, or vice versa piglets will be wild. Pig/human ratio was 0.55 in 2006 smaller than
figures of Highlands societies. The Bosavi's husbandry suggests the early form of pig
domestication, in which biological classification between wild and domestic is obscure.
However, people classify wild and domestic pigs linguistically. The extensiveness relates to
their subsistence system with quick restoration of forests from cultivation, which provides
enough protein resources such as small marsupials. Recently, the importance of domestic pig
increases, because of introduction of Highlands social system which attaches importance to
pig as bride price. In addition, people regard domestic pigs as "pets" or "family" inappropriate
for cash trade, while wild pig frequently trade using cash. Because of recent acceptance of the
monetary economy, people occasionally disguise domestic pigs as wild pigs in order to earn
cash.
Juan Javier Rivera Andia, Catholic University of Peru.
Andean cattle branding rituals: relationships between indigenous people and native and
European livestock
Cattle branding rituals are one of the most alive and widespread indigenous rituals in the
Andes (in contrast with other regions as Spain, where cattle is so ritualized as Spain). Until
now, mostly folklorists have written ethnographies about it. Based in recent fieldwork and
bibliographic research I will try to analyse what they say about human-animal relationships in
Quechua terms.
In the Andes, cattle branding rituals are one of the most "resistant" and widespread indigenous
rituals of this cultural area. In contrast, the same rituals do not have the same complexity
joining and do not join such an amount of energy and investments (including regions where
the cattle is so ritualized as Spain). Until now, mostly folklorists have written ethnographies
about it. Based in recent fieldwork and bibliographic research I will try to analyse the causes
of its strength and complexity searching for what they say about human-animal relationships
for contemporary Quechua people.
Nadia Dropkin American University of Cairo
Skyscapers of Abdeen, Cairo: Pigeons, Men, and Alternative Socialities
This paper is about the intimate entanglements of pigeons and men in Abdeen, Cairo. It is an
ethnographic study of the ways of living and socializing that revolve around raising, training,
and playing games with pigeons in the urban space of Cairo.
On the rooftops of apartments throughout Abdeen, Cairo are lofts that house pigeons. Pigeon
aficionados each have a particular type of pigeon that they favor: fancy pigeons for
competitions, racing pigeons, or "war" pigeons that attempt to capture one's neighbors'
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pigeons. The profound love and admiration these men have for their pigeons conveys the
depth of this "hobby." There is, however, much more to pigeon flying than to pigeons actually
flying. This paper is about what it means to be "ghawi hamaam." While ghawi hamaam could
be translated as "pigeon hobbyist," being ghawi hamaam is about expending all of one's time,
money, and love on pigeons. It is about the preference of the company of birds and fellow
pigeon fanciers: a departure from the pious self, the entrepreneurial self, and the family man.
It is a way of living and socializing that revolves around raising, training, and playing games
with pigeons in the urban space of Cairo. Based upon ongoing fieldwork, this paper is about
the alternative social project of men who live in Abdeen and raise pigeons. How does being
ghawi hamaam contribute to an alternative form of sociality? What are the forms of living
and being social that an addiction to pigeons fosters? How is raising pigeons part of a
lifeworld that refuses to participate in the demand of being modern male subjects? And, how
are these men exercising power and performing masculinities when they train their pigeon
soldiers to win the imaginary wars that they fight.
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