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Paper short abstract

This paper explores the skills generally identified as 'good herding' in Lebanese pastoralism, how they compare with other livestock systems and the different ways animals can be said to 'labour' in various production regimes. It thus aims to nuance multispecies notions of care, control and labour.

Paper long abstract

In this paper, I explore the skills generally associated with being a 'good herder' in the context of Lebanese pastoralism namely observation, care and control. How do these skills and values identified by herders compare with other livestock systems? Does it make sense to apply the concept of 'labour' to animals in the context of food production and if so how are animals seen to 'labour' differently in various production regimes? I argue that more than a difference in kind, such skills differ in degree in various food producing systems. I thus attempt to nuance views of industrial agriculture as 'disembedded' and 'exploitative' compared to a 'caring' and 'harmonious' pastoralism, exploring instead some of the specificities of human-animal relations in different production regimes. Good herders in Lebanon are expected to 'control' their herd and kill when the time is right and workers in factory farms do also develop caring relationships with the animals they tend (Blanchette 2020). I argue that one specificity of human-animal relations in this form of Lebanese pastoralism revolved around its use of trained non-human labour to reduce the amount of human labour, as opposed to coercive physical instrustructures (race, hurdes, parlours) in other regimes, thus conferring it more flexibility and independence from capital. The research is based on twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork in Mount Lebanon, working and living with one family of semi-nomadic herders from 2023-2024 and a year of part time work with an extensive sheep farmer in the UK from 2025-2026.