Paper Short Abstract:

This lecture will focus on stories describing relationships between women and cows in the old Icelandic farm society from a post-humanist perspective. Using archival material from the ethnographic collection of the National Museum of Iceland, unheard histories of women and cows, multifaceted and complex relationships and gender dynamics will be recounted.

Paper Abstract:

This lecture will discuss stories of the relationships between women and cows in the old Icelandic farm society from a post-humanist perspective. Using archival material curated in the ethnographic collection of the National Museum of Iceland, untold histories of women and cows, gender and power will be recounted. These are stories about multifaceted and complex relationships, gender politics and unbalanced power structures between men and women, as well as stationary and roaming animals as companion species. These stories are excellent examples of multispecies cohabitation including humans and non-humans.

Within this presentation two specific archived questionnaires focused on cattle and milk production at the farm will be discussed. The focus of the questionnaires was to gather knowledge about farm practices concerning milking and dairy products, superstitions concerning the animals, and the treatment of animals by their human companions on an everyday basis. However, by looking at the questionnaires through the lenses of feminism and posthumanism, untold stories start to surface, stories that have never been written nor heard. These are stories of gender-based injustices, complicated relationships between humans and non-humans, and voices that were unable to speak.

Fleshing out multispecies relationships visible in the archives, draws attention towards the untold stories of human-animal relationships in the past, providing new understandings and insights better suited for our posthuman future.