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Ethnographic study reveals expressions of agency alongside institutional constraints in dairy cows, suggesting social life emerges from dynamic human-animal intra-actions.
Literature has described dairy cows as both passive objects and active participants in the milk production process. This study explores how this passivity and activity co‐exist through an inquiry into dairy cow agency within a post‐anthropocentric conceptualisation of socialisation theories. Thereto, the dairy farm is framed as an anthroparchal total institution (ATI). Observations and video‐making on a Belgian dairy farm generated 180 video‐recorded events and extensive fieldnotes. The findings suggest that dairy cows perform acts of agency, including both acts of resistance and make‐dos. However, their agency remains limited because of the constraints imposed by the ATI. The passive–active dualism is overcome through the post‐humanist conception of becoming with . The dairy farm is a contact zone where dairy cows, the farmer, technologies, objects, routines and structures meet, intra‐act and become with together. Subsequently, it is through intra‐action between all actors that social life on the dairy farm is formed, transformed and sustained.
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Verstraete et al. (2026) studied this question.
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