Paper short abstract:

In this paper, human-salmon relations in the High North are employed to destabilise agrarian perspectives of animal domestication. With Arctic fishermen in mind, I discuss key terms associated with different definitions of domestication, such as ‘selection’, ‘capture’ and ‘becoming with’.

Paper long abstract:

The agrarian structures entrenched in biological understanding of domestication, places limitations on the uses of the term for anthropological purposes. As Ingold (2000) points out, the biological definition reifies an understanding of domestication as a steady increase in human control over growth and reproduction. Agrarian domestication is closely associated with selective breeding. Such a definition, places us in a position where we act upon nature, ignoring how animals act upon us, and ignoring numerous possible forms of existing animal agency.

Such agrarian definitions have recently been challenged by more symmetrical approaches, treating domestication as a two-way process. Such recent definitions emphasise unintended consequences rather than human mastery (Cassidy 2007, see also Haraway 2007). Ingold argues the significance of capture for the evolution of domestication. Capture here situates humans and non-humans in a relational web, where animals and humans are part of networks of reciprocal interdependency. Capture here, is perceived as a dialogue, where trust is essential, as a combination of autonomy and dependency. Capture however, does not naturally provide a view that fish or game also acts upon man. Following Northern hunter-gatherers, I argue that before capture comes knowledge of relational existence. Instances of salmon and game domesticated in this paper illustrate the necessity of including knowledge not just of immediate human-animal relations, but also to include knowledge of other relations, as there are more actors involved: More than the moment of capture, or the intimate inter-species gaze - Ingolds being with - we must consider Donna Haraway's becoming with.