I can’t tell if you’re correct in calling our relationship with domesticated animals co-evolution, but I like the thought. Co-evolution is typically considered a process where two or more species share a bond during their evolution that causes them to change together. I would say humans and animals have changed together, but the changes to humans as a result of domestication are more social, behavioral, and economic than genetic like the changes in domesticated animals are. But if we don’t define “evolution” as being only a genetic process, I think you might be right in calling in co-evolution. How I’d say the changes to animals are more pronounced than the changes to humans.

As a tip, it would be extremely helpful if you had paragraph breaks in your posts, having one wall of text makes it much more difficult to read.

I agree that Buillet’s writing seems to lack citations compared to Ingold’s, but I don’t think that’s due to a lack of research, but rather different target audiences. I think Buillet is writing for a broad public audience, which is part of the reason he uses such graphic stories right in the beginning of the book. Ingold reads more like a scholarly text. If you look at the back of Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers there seems to be quite a lot of references.

Yeah but that’s not what my point was. Lots of animals ‘could’ be domesticated if we selectively bred them. The definition given by Kara in her response was that animals that “accustomed to human interaction [are] domesticated.” That’s where I was going with my comment and I think that the definition is a bit too broad.

I agree with you that Bulliet has just now gotten into the process of domestication compared to the information he had in the introduction. I believe he included that bold intro as a means to capture the audience but it almost had the opposite reaction on me by making me question the relevance of his subject matter and actual level of expertise on the matter.

Leashes aren’t just to protect people though, they can also be used to protect the animal. Some people would fear for their dog’s safety if they let it walk without a leash as it could hurt itself or get lost running off. I am playing devil’s advocate though. By and large the leash is a sign of a fear/control.

Deer could actually, as they are now, be analogous to pre-domesticated horses maybe. They are somewhat familiar with people, some probably keep them as pets. If we selectively bred them we probably could domesticate them. As is they are more tame than domesticated.

I don’t know about domestication being just when animals are accustomed to human interaction. White tailed deer in Virginia are so numerous that they have come to interact with human beings (especially in cars) so often that in essence they’re used to cars now. Deer jump across roads all the time, and if you drive past a herd of deer just feet from a highway they don’t jump away in fear, they’re used to cars. Does that make them domesticated?

What stuck out to me most in the Ingold and Bulliet excerpts was the relationships premised around the emotions of fear/being tame and trust. In the Ingold article he talks about how hunters and gatherers share a mutual trust because they depend on one another. This type of relationship can lead to companionship. Bulliet and Clutton -Brock address the ability to domesticate an animal to a variety of factors but one in particular being the absence of fear. When an animal is accustomed to human interaction it is domesticated. This relates to the leash/non least concept because Ingold could see the lack of a leash as a companionship type relationship in which both parties trust one another eliminating the need for the leash altogether. Bulliet could see the use of the leash as fear existing between the parties or not completely taming the animal.

These questions about the cultural significance of dogs walking off-lead are fascinating. What do you think they say about human culture? Clutton-Brock talks about cultures of animals, and one of the interesting things about domesticated animals is how their cultures are implicated in and bound up with ours. I’d be curious to hear how you saw Clutton-Brock’s discussion of domestication connecting with the theories put forth by Ingold and Bulliet.

[…] positive) responses this week – which is great!  I’m really grateful to Corinne and Kelly for pointing out the obvious problem of theorizing domestication without looking seriously at the […]