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: