Date post: | 11-Jan-2016 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | rosamond-burns |
View: | 214 times |
Download: | 0 times |
CircumpolarityHuman-Animal Relations in the Circumpolar North
David G. Anderson
arcticdomus.org
Arctic Domestication: • an old theme, with special relevance to anthropology
• domestication classically defined as a sudden relationship of domination, which divides the world into ‘wild’ and ‘cultivated’ types
• in the history of the sciences, linked to colonialism and projects of improvement
• recent research calls into question older models
o Human-Animal relations in the Arctic traditionally are an awkward fito Among the ‘cradles’ and ‘hearths’ are new types of domestic animals, as well as puzzling ‘hybrids’
o These relations are often ‘emplaced’ in mindful landscapes.
Field ‘laboratories’ and interdisciplinarity:
o ethnography
o science studies
o environmental archaeology
o genetic sampling
• the idea of a field laboratory complicates the idea of ‘person’ and ‘place’ by researching locales where domestication arises
• we therefore treat tundra encampments and university laboratory as sites of equal status, not to mention enskillment that flows from animals to people or from animals to other animals.
• in terms of ‘data’ we will work with four traditions:
Three Arctic Species:
o Fish although a ‘newly’ domesticated laboratory species have long supported complex relationships in Northern lands
o Dogs, said to the be the ‘first’ species to be domesticated, often participate in complex social networks both with people and other animals
o Reindeer/caribou, a classic ‘Arctic species’, have proven to come in and out of various forms of domestication with such intensity as to question the definition of the term itself.
• Across the circumpolar North one often finds a ‘triad’ of dogs, reindeer/caribou and fish
Writing Animal Biographies: • from pedigrees to a history of work
An ethnographic ground to genetic models:
Hybrids and Pure-Breeds: