A walk on the wild side: a critical geography of domestication

Abstract

Against a backdrop of growing interest in animal geographies and the genetic engineering of species, this article critically examines the process of animal domestication. To date, the social selection and breeding of animals have received little deconstructive effort from human scientists. The article begins by reviewing earlier schools of geographic thought on domestication, including the work of Carl Sauer, for whom domestication was a transhistorical process of evolution's unfolding. In working away from that perspective, I historicize animal domestication within a narrative politics of ideas about human uniqueness, savagery and civilization through which the process was conceived and conducted from at least classical times. The article thus develops a cultural critique of technologies that have been fundamental to the transformation of landscapes. Integral to the story are concepts of ‘domus’ and ‘agrios’, the ‘bringing in’ of ‘the wild’, and associated notions of containment, fixity, settling and improvement. These ideas, I argue, became threaded into the relations of not only humans and certain animals but also raced and gendered relations in European-derived societies. The article concludes with appeals to the imagining of more animal-inclusive models of social relations; the relaxation of rigid oppositions of civility and wildness; and a ‘human’ Self more conversant with its own wild side, dedomesticated and unbound.

Contingencies of the Anthropocene: Lessons from the ‘Neolithic’

“…‘The demise of the human–nature dualism and the tenacious hold it nonetheless maintains are both strongly linked to industrial capitalism’ (Sayre, 2012: 58), in that ideals of pristine nature somewhere else were strengthened during the brutal urban expressions of the Industrial Revolution. Similar arguments have often been made about colonialism, with the noble savage standing in and for nature (Anderson, 1997, 2003). If the Anthropocene is to fulfil its promise to do things differently, a lot of conceptual labour will be needed.…”

Contingencies of the Anthropocene: Lessons from the ‘Neolithic’

“…‘The demise of the human–nature dualism and the tenacious hold it nonetheless maintains are both strongly linked to industrial capitalism’ (Sayre, 2012: 58), in that ideals of pristine nature somewhere else were strengthened during the brutal urban expressions of the Industrial Revolution. Similar arguments have often been made about colonialism, with the noble savage standing in and for nature (Anderson, 1997, 2003). If the Anthropocene is to fulfil its promise to do things differently, a lot of conceptual labour will be needed.…”

Gardens and birdwatching: recreation, environmental management and human-nature interaction in an everyday location

“…These findings, drawn from the views of some respondents in this study, challenge the view of nature as a passive ‘other’ that is used and exploited by humans. In particular, the view of gardens as sites of domestication where non‐humans are expected to acquiesce to human‐directed terms and conditions (Anderson 1997) seems unsupportable in this study because it appears it is humans who have to agree to the ‘terms and conditions’ of birds if they want to attract them into their garden. The reality is that different species (and individuals) of birds respond in different ways to the different gardens and the different ways of managing gardens.…”

“…The view of gardens as sites of human control and ownership with gardeners taking central stage in a monologue produced by the all‐powerful gardener (Power 2005; Anderson 1997) is open to challenge because gardens can also be seen as locations of overt bird activity with (generally) passive human observation and (some) human intervention. Rather than humans being central to gardens and gardening, it can be suggested that the non‐human activity and the place can assume centrality as the stimulus for, and location of, human activity.…”

Making country good: stewardship and environmental change in central Australian pastoral culture

“…The specifics of the interpolation of continuity and discontinuity generate and maintain meaning that supports internal cultural cohesion and does political work in struggles over land. The concept of critical domestication provides a framework within which I have been able to place the development of pastoral stewardship in a deeper temporal and cultural context, demonstrating that it is not a given ‘transhistorical process’ that unfolds but is a ‘political activity embedded within concrete human practices’ (Anderson , 481). In moving beyond a paradigm of interpreting inland settlement through cultural transfer and adaptation to one that recognises pastoralists’ relationships to land and place, we should not uncritically privilege claims to belong and to know, nor should we deploy local environmental knowledge without awareness of its cultural and historical contexts.…”

Contingencies of the Anthropocene: Lessons from the ‘Neolithic’

“…‘The demise of the human–nature dualism and the tenacious hold it nonetheless maintains are both strongly linked to industrial capitalism’ (Sayre, 2012: 58), in that ideals of pristine nature somewhere else were strengthened during the brutal urban expressions of the Industrial Revolution. Similar arguments have often been made about colonialism, with the noble savage standing in and for nature (Anderson, 1997, 2003). If the Anthropocene is to fulfil its promise to do things differently, a lot of conceptual labour will be needed.…”

Gardens and birdwatching: recreation, environmental management and human-nature interaction in an everyday location

“…These findings, drawn from the views of some respondents in this study, challenge the view of nature as a passive ‘other’ that is used and exploited by humans. In particular, the view of gardens as sites of domestication where non‐humans are expected to acquiesce to human‐directed terms and conditions (Anderson 1997) seems unsupportable in this study because it appears it is humans who have to agree to the ‘terms and conditions’ of birds if they want to attract them into their garden. The reality is that different species (and individuals) of birds respond in different ways to the different gardens and the different ways of managing gardens.…”

“…The view of gardens as sites of human control and ownership with gardeners taking central stage in a monologue produced by the all‐powerful gardener (Power 2005; Anderson 1997) is open to challenge because gardens can also be seen as locations of overt bird activity with (generally) passive human observation and (some) human intervention. Rather than humans being central to gardens and gardening, it can be suggested that the non‐human activity and the place can assume centrality as the stimulus for, and location of, human activity.…”

Making country good: stewardship and environmental change in central Australian pastoral culture

“…The specifics of the interpolation of continuity and discontinuity generate and maintain meaning that supports internal cultural cohesion and does political work in struggles over land. The concept of critical domestication provides a framework within which I have been able to place the development of pastoral stewardship in a deeper temporal and cultural context, demonstrating that it is not a given ‘transhistorical process’ that unfolds but is a ‘political activity embedded within concrete human practices’ (Anderson , 481). In moving beyond a paradigm of interpreting inland settlement through cultural transfer and adaptation to one that recognises pastoralists’ relationships to land and place, we should not uncritically privilege claims to belong and to know, nor should we deploy local environmental knowledge without awareness of its cultural and historical contexts.…”

Contingencies of the Anthropocene: Lessons from the ‘Neolithic’

“…‘The demise of the human–nature dualism and the tenacious hold it nonetheless maintains are both strongly linked to industrial capitalism’ (Sayre, 2012: 58), in that ideals of pristine nature somewhere else were strengthened during the brutal urban expressions of the Industrial Revolution. Similar arguments have often been made about colonialism, with the noble savage standing in and for nature (Anderson, 1997, 2003). If the Anthropocene is to fulfil its promise to do things differently, a lot of conceptual labour will be needed.…”

Gardens and birdwatching: recreation, environmental management and human-nature interaction in an everyday location

“…These findings, drawn from the views of some respondents in this study, challenge the view of nature as a passive ‘other’ that is used and exploited by humans. In particular, the view of gardens as sites of domestication where non‐humans are expected to acquiesce to human‐directed terms and conditions (Anderson 1997) seems unsupportable in this study because it appears it is humans who have to agree to the ‘terms and conditions’ of birds if they want to attract them into their garden. The reality is that different species (and individuals) of birds respond in different ways to the different gardens and the different ways of managing gardens.…”

“…The view of gardens as sites of human control and ownership with gardeners taking central stage in a monologue produced by the all‐powerful gardener (Power 2005; Anderson 1997) is open to challenge because gardens can also be seen as locations of overt bird activity with (generally) passive human observation and (some) human intervention. Rather than humans being central to gardens and gardening, it can be suggested that the non‐human activity and the place can assume centrality as the stimulus for, and location of, human activity.…”

Making country good: stewardship and environmental change in central Australian pastoral culture

“…The specifics of the interpolation of continuity and discontinuity generate and maintain meaning that supports internal cultural cohesion and does political work in struggles over land. The concept of critical domestication provides a framework within which I have been able to place the development of pastoral stewardship in a deeper temporal and cultural context, demonstrating that it is not a given ‘transhistorical process’ that unfolds but is a ‘political activity embedded within concrete human practices’ (Anderson , 481). In moving beyond a paradigm of interpreting inland settlement through cultural transfer and adaptation to one that recognises pastoralists’ relationships to land and place, we should not uncritically privilege claims to belong and to know, nor should we deploy local environmental knowledge without awareness of its cultural and historical contexts.…”