‘To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man’: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son

Abstract

“To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man”: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son. The present paper intends to build a critique of contemporary farming practices, based on Erika Cudworth’s theory of “anthroparchy.” By exemplifying how anthroparchal interactions function in John Connell’s memoir, I will outline the becoming of a posthuman farmer that awakens certain sensibilities towards nonhuman animals, in ways that compel a rethinking of gendered relations, patriarchy, violence, and capitalist interests. The analysis provides a needed insight into recent developments in Irish rural farming, detailing the position of the human subject in relation to nonhuman otherness and describing some of the changes that need to be made regarding the power relations that are at work within patriarchal systems. To this extent, Cudworth’s theoretical framework and Connell’s memoir are proven to be contributing to the necessary restructuring of farming practices and of human-nonhuman interactions. Keywords: anthroparchy, posthumanism, gender relations, zoomorphism, capitalism, farming

Livestock Management, Masculine Care and Cognitive Ecology: An Ecomasculine Approach to John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son

“…Eco-masculine consciousness has been incorporated into this novel, through eco-modernist, ecophilic, and ecosophical cattle-farming approaches. Paraschiv (2021) validated Connell as a posthuman farmer in terms of awakening anthroparchal interactions between humans and non-humans, gender relations, patriarchal violence etc., And it focuses more on the complicated implication of anthroparchy in discussing the contemporary approach to animal husbandry. The masculinity of Connell seems to have positioned beyond the constraints of hegemonic patriarchal influences but the narrator"s inclination towards non-mechanisation of farming practices, provides further scope for the researcher to explore more on the dialogic nature of masculinity and the phenomenon of "care" in actuality.…”