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Accepted Paper:
From buffaloes to robust pigs: Changing multispecies assemblages in the Ukrainian Carpathians in times of multiple crises
Laura Kuen
(Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Focusing on the rearing of increasingly autonomous pigs that are replacing the presence of grazing animals, the paper examines the ways in which multispecies relations as well as the agricultural landscape in the Ukrainian Carpathians are being renegotiated in the face of overlapping crises.
Paper Abstract:
This paper focuses on the changing use of grazing land in western Ukraine, which has become increasingly overgrown since the collapse of the Soviet Union and in the course of increasing labor migration to the European Union. Instead of Carpathian buffaloes, cows or goats, it is robustly reared pigs that enable a new, less labor-intensive form of land use. Autonomously living pigs find a new home in scrubby former pastureland or primeval beech forests. With the escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine in 2022, the possibility of labor migration to the EU ended for the majority of men due to potential military obligations. As a result of this development, but also in view of increasing droughts, the keeping of free-range robust pigs instead of grazing animals is becoming a more attractive regional income. Focusing on the rearing of increasingly autonomous pigs that are replacing the presence of grazing animals, the paper examines the ways in which multispecies relations as well as the agricultural landscape in the Ukrainian Carpathians are being renegotiated in the face of overlapping crises.