Paper Short Abstract:

This paper presents an emerging yak breeding practice in Tibet. Through the critique of biopower, I show how Tibetan yak herders are being encouraged by the state authorities and veterinary science to ‘improve’ yaks’ productivity by breeding domestic yak with wild yaks.

Paper Abstract:

This paper is based on an ethnographic research conducted in 2021-2022 in Yulshu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Through the critique of biopower in the more-than-human worlds, I show that Tibetan yak herders are being encouraged by the state and veterinary science to ‘improve’ yaks’ productivity by breeding domestic yak with wild yaks. Such purposeful cross breeding of the domestic and the wild yaks is unprecedented in the history of yak husbandry. Moreover, as part of the state plan to industrialize yak husbandry, the rarity and charisma of wild yaks make the hybrid offspring highly marketable. In addition, 'Improving' the yak bodies is increasingly becoming part of herders' identity. This paper argues that the blurred boundary between wild yaks and domestic yaks is critical to the making of good herder and good yaks, which is shaped by state-organized yak breeding competitions, yak conferences, and state's yak modernization projects.