Animal Domestication, World History and Multispecies Relations

Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway and Jocelyne Porcher challenge a common view of domestication: that it is necessarily a form of domination. Domesticated animals are not artefacts of a self-enclosed human culture but can be rich forms of ‘naturalcultural’ multi-species flourishing. Contra Despret, Haraway and Porcher, this article claims that the control and exploitation of domesticated animals that is central to the emergence and continuation of modern life is not challenged by providing alternative stories of multi-species relations. A new form of multi-species relation is possible only when self-determination, the central concept of modernity, is untethered from its connection to domesticated animals.