Climate instruments such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions by Deforestation and Degradation) promise a win-win proposition as villagers in Africa are paid for their efforts to conserve forests and sequester carbon. REDD+ assembles divergent interests at different scales-from bureaucrats to individual villagers. We argue that climate assemblages are shifting the space of the political by regulating practices that previously had local and national provenance. They are producing "state-like" effects that touch deeply on citizenship. Villagers are drawn into a shifting REDD+ assemblage and subject to new identifications as entrepreneurs and responsible environmental citizens, meant to look after a new global commons. We shift the discussion to deal seriously with questions of a "global" citizenship, not in its utopian sense, but by bringing into light the dark side of global citizenship already in practice in environmental governance. Forests and peoples are in practice made global-we must conceptualize the rights of this "global" citizenship Résumé: Les dispositifs climatiques tels le REDD+ présentent une solution de «gagnant-gagnant», car les villageois africains seront payés pour leurs efforts de conservation ainsi que pour leur contribution à séquestrer le carbone. REDD promet donc de contribuer à la fois au développement local et à la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique. REDD+ est rendu possible par la facon dont il promet de rassembler des intérêts divergents et multiéchelles, qui regroupent bureaucrates et villageois. Nous soutenons que les assemblages climatiques déplacent l'espace politique, en se substituant à des pratiques qui avaient auparavant une provenance locale et nationale. La réglementation de ces pratiques pour des raisons climatiques produisent un effet «Étatique» qui interviennent profondément dans l'exercise de la citoyenneté. Les villageois sont embarqués dans un assemblage REDD+ en mouvement, et soumis à des nouvelles identifications en tant qu'entrepreneurs et citoyens environnementaux responsables, chargés de s'occuper d'un nouveau bien commun mondiale. Nous proposons de traiter sérieusement la question d'une citoyenneté «mondiale», non pas dans un sens utopique, mais dans un perspectif qui puisse jeter de la lumière sur la façon dont la gouvernance environnementale imposent des nouveaux devoirs des citoyens africains. Les forêts et les peuples sont déjà dans la pratique devenues mondiale-nous proposons de conceptualiser les droits d'une nouvelle citoyenneté «mondiale».

Cattle are paramount to lives, livelihoods and landscapes in Botswana. Human-cattle relations emerge and evolve through historically-situated social relations of power based on gender, ethnicity, and class. Our paper explores intersectional human-cattle relations in Botswana within the contemporary period of enhanced commercialization. Specifically, with data from participant observation and semi-structured interviews with women cattle owners in Ghanzi District, Botswana, we investigate how women across a range of ethnicities become-with cattle and how cattle are becoming-with women cattle owners, directly or mediated through hired labour and/or technology. By operationalizing Haraway’s multispecies ‘becoming-with’ through intersectionality theory we articulate the nuanced ways in which individuals or social groups of two distinct species (here humans and cattle) become who they are. We show that whereas gender and ethnicity dynamics place women as engaging directly with cattle, engaging indirectly with cattle or becoming-without cattle, class most visibly shape the way that cattle become-with women cattle owners and other humans. We offer a novel illustration of an intersectional becoming-with, highlighting human-animal relations in the context of agriculture and socio-economic change in the Global South.

No abstract

Greater resilience is needed for farms to deal with shocks and disturbances originating from economic, environmental, social and institutional challenges, with resilience achieved by adequate adaptive governance. This study focuses on the resilience capacity of farms in the context of multi-level adaptive governance. We define adaptive governance as adjustments in decision-making processes at farm level and policy level, through changes in management practices and policies in response to identified challenges and the delivery of desired functions (e.g. private and public goods) to be attained. The aim of the study is twofold. First, we investigate how adaptive governance processes at farm level and policy level influence the resilience capacity of farms in terms of robustness, adaptability and transformability. Second, we investigate the “fit” between the adaptive governance processes at farm level and policy level to enable resilience. We study primary egg and broiler production in Sweden taking into consideration economic, social and environmental challenges. We use semi-structured interviews with 17 farmers to explain the adaptive processes at farm level and an analysis of policy documents from the Common Agricultural Policy program 2014–2020, to explain the intervention actions taken by the Common Agricultural Policy. Results show that neither the farm level nor policy level adaptive processes on their own have the capacity to fully enable farms to be robust, adaptable and transformable. While farm level adaptive processes are mainly directed toward securing the robustness and adaptability of farms, policy level interventions are targeted at enabling adaptability. The farm- and the policy level adaptive processes do not “fit” for attaining robustness and transformability.

Dairy cows provide a spectacular example of what can be achieved with purposeful breeding of nonhuman animals in terms of increasing production and bodily adaptation to particular production systems. This implies that humans can make nonhuman bodies take whatever form they desire. However, the assumption that breeding outcomes are entirely shaped by humans has been criticized. This article contributes to ongoing discussions of breeds as socially constructed and applies a focus on cattle actions. Within a more-than-human biopower framework, cattle actions and ways of “doing” cattle are integral to both the notion and the future of the breed. This ethnography of breeding Swedish Mountain Cattle provides a detailed account of the mutual subjectification of cattle and farmers within an agricultural context, revealing the scope and limits of cattle agency and how “doing” cattle affects individuals and populations.

Cowboyn mielikuvasta on muodostunut äärimmäisen maskuliinisuuden symboli, jota käytetään usein kuvaamaan heteroseksuaalista macho-maskuliinisuuden arkkityyppiä. Tässä artikkelissa käsitellään nykyään Länsi-Kanadassa toimivalla karjatilalla työskenteleviä cowboyta. He ilmaisevat ja arvostavat vaihtoehtoista cowboy-maskuliinisuutta, jota luonnehtivat vastuullisuus, rauhallisuus, tekninen taidokkuus ja sensitiivisyys. Artikkelissa pohditaan karjatilan jokapäiväisiä ihmisten ja eläinten - cowboyden, hevosten ja nautojen - välisiä suhteita. Keskityn tarkastelemaan erityisesti sitä, miten maskuliinisuudet esiintyvät karjatilan arjessa cowboyn ja hevosen tai naudan välisessä vuorovaikutuksessa, ja sitä, miten eläimiä käytetään erilaisten maskuliinisuuksien konstruointiin ja esittämiseen. Tutkimuksen aineisto on kerätty osallistuvan havainnoinnin ja haastattelujen avulla cowboy-ryhmän parissa. Artikkeli pohjautuu posthumanistisiin käsityksiin kokemuksen ruumiillisuudesta ja moninaisista maskuliinisuuksista sekä käsitykseen, jonka mukaan ihmisen ja eläimen suhde ei perustu näiden vastakkainasettelulle. Artikkelissa korostetaankin ei-binaarisia analyyttisiä kehyksiä ja niiden viimeaikaista kehitystä. Artikkelin johtopäätös on, että vaikka sama laji tarjoaakin monia erilaisten maskuliinisuuksien esittämisen mahdollistavia suhteita, cowboyt käyttävät eri eläinten kategorioita eri tavoin vaihtoehtoisten ja täydentävien maskuliinisuuksien konstruoinnissa.

This paper explores how cattle breeds are constructed through social practice-which we conceptually develop as "designing" cattle. We show how breed varieties are designed, informed by the social, material and moral embeddedness of cattle breeding associations' visions of the future and how they draw on science and technology in their breeding strategies. Based on an analysis of the trade magazines of three different breeding associations, we illustrate how breeding associations are working to establish four different varieties of Swedish Mountain Cattle (SMC). We conclude that the concept of designing cattle enables us to unpack how breeds are socially constructed and institutionally stabilized through sociotechnical imaginaries.

Herding cattle across the landscape requires three species – horse, cattle, and human – to move together in a goal-orientated, albeit human-centered, activity. In this multispecies activity, they must synchronize through embodied communication and develop a shared understanding of moving conjointly. Together, all three species are socialized, or “zoocialized,” to learn to engage in a shared community of communication where they develop a sense of “timing” and “feel” of the others to enable their directed movement together. While not denying or downplaying the power and pain integral to cattle ranching, we explore and interpret the interspecies, multispecies communication, collaboration, and choreography. Based on a multispecies ethnographic methodology, we draw on experiences from cattle herding in the USA, Canada, and Sweden. What emerges are intricate relations of agency, shaped by meanings of species, where human and nonhuman social actors learn to meet and construct a vibrant multispecies community of communication.