| Title | 7. FARMING COWS AND WORMS |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Simone de Boer (author) |
| Hanna Charlotta Wernersson(author) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.63308/63878687083054.ch07 |
| Landing page | https://www.whpress.co.uk/publications/2025/03/04/meam-2/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Simone de Boer; Hanna Charlotta Wernersson |
| Publisher | The White Horse Press |
| Published on | 2025-07-01 |
| Long abstract | This piece presents a multimedia montage that explores multispecies relationships in three different farming contexts: human-worm relationships in Kyrgyz compost heaps, and human-cow (or bull) relationships on two divergent Swedish cattle farms, one family farm (cow-calf farm) and one industrial farm (bull-breeding farm). The video montage is made up of different mixed media, consisting of video and still images, drawings, sounds, and quotations from informants. The visual piece is accompanied by three kinds of written comments. The montage companion gives more details about the authors’ motivations for artistic work, and about the circumstances of their encounter and how they creatively worked together. In their experience, artistic work has helped them to sustain their curiosity for their object, but also to give place to contradictions (love and violence, for example); creativity contributed to open their senses to a multisensorial ethnography. Taken together, these elements allow the authors to explore multispecies socialities and let the non-human ‘speak for themselves’. The montage guide accompanies the readers by giving them a more detailed subtext. That part is necessary for making sense of what has been sensed or intuited during the first viewing of the montage. With the montage guide, the reader can come back to each moment, pause, reflect on it, and connect it to the research question. With this addition, the whole process makes sense and we can see how artistic methods make a difference. Lastly, the artnographic statement explains the context of the research and presents the main question: what is a ‘good’ relationship in human-animal relationships where animals are kept with human food in mind? It explains how the material of the montage was created and why their joint engagements with artful methods matter to the authors in addressing the question. |
| Page range | pp. 156–167 |
| Print length | 12 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Media | 2 illustrations |
| 1 video |
Simone de Boer is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, School of Global Studies. In her research she focuses on the development and meaning of organic and permaculture farming in Kyrgyzstan. Using ethnographic and creative methods, she explores processes of learning and knowing, more-than-human relationships, and ‘good farmer’ identities. The creative methods she employs include photography, video, drawing, creative writing and workshops with interlocutors. Simone’s educational background is in Cultural Anthropology and Film & Photographic Studies (Leiden University, the Netherlands). In her previous research in Kyrgyzstan, she studied (transformations of ) ‘traditional’ horse games and human-horse relationships in the context of increasing tourism, processes of sportification, and the development of mega sporting events. In 2018–2019, she was one of Leiden’s City Photographers, creating ethnographic photo essays for the city newspaper in collaboration with fellow anthropologists.
Hanna is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Global Studies within the field of environmental social science. In her Ph.D. project, she studies conceptualisations and performances of ‘holistic’ management among regenerative cattle farmers in Sweden. Using ethnographic and creative methods, Hanna explores the ethical and practical relationships to nonhuman nature that are produced in and through daily farm doings. Creative writing, drawing and soundscape-making are examples of Hanna’s methodology. Hanna has a MSc in socio-ecological resilience from Stockholm Resilience Center. Her professional experience includes working as Course Coordinator at the Center for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden, and as Agricultural Marketing Specialist for the US Foreign Agricultural Service, Canada. Hanna also farms twelve hectares of land, exploring what ‘good’ land management could mean on the clay soils of western Sweden.