Schaumann, Eleanor
Rsearch Interests :
Social and cultural Anthropology
Geographical Area :
Namibia
Current Project:
Tracing Karakul in Postcolonial Practices and Landscapes
The focus of my project lies on the ways that knowledges and material effects are entangled. Breeding knowledge is embodied in genetic information and the bodies of stud animals, enacted in the activities of livestock breeding and stud animal auctions. Pelt making knowledge is concerned with transforming lamb carcasses into pelts with minimal damage the skins. Both are distinct from but occasionally overlap with other farming knowledge, which is practiced by farmers and farm workers and concerned with sheep keeping while relying on precise knowledge of specific landscapes. Meanwhile, pelts are the subject of fashion marketing, which Ihope to observe at the Saga Fur auction. These different knowledges produce multiple enactments of what Swakara/Karakul sheep are. Central research questions are how a 'breed' becomes associated with ideas of indigeneity and territory. How are notions of 'purity' constructed and contested? What is the relation of knowledge of the landscape and scientific 'genetic' knowledge? And what are the political implications of this?