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Paper short abstract

The history of pastoralism in Sardinia informs the way in which shepherds today fight legal battles to preserve the specificity of their cheese production against industrial dairies. The intervention will address the issue of the flexible relationship between shepherds and industrial dairies.

Paper long abstract

The history of pastoralism in Sardinia informs the way in which cheese-producing shepherds today fight legal battles to preserve the specificity of their production against certain industrial dairies. These shepherds navigate between different opportunities and difficulties, seeking to reclaim the dynamics that have affected their production since the early 20th century. Industrial cheese production gradually established itself on the island in the early 1900s. Shepherds have been and still are part of this industrial history (through the creation of cooperatives and/or their role as milk suppliers to private companies, or through commercial relationships for the cheese they produce directly). They have an ambiguous and flexible relationship with it, at times one of alliance and at others one of conflict. Today, shepherds who produce cheese are fighting legal battles to try to rewrite the history of their political and economic role within the supra-local production flows in which the cheeses they produce are included. This presentation will address these issues based on research conducted with photographer Franco Zecchin over the last 15 years, combining ethnographic and photographic perspectives.