Of Least Concern: Porcine Overabundance in the Anthropocene

0578975 - EÚ 2024 eng A - Abstract
Szczygielska, Marianna
Of Least Concern: Porcine Overabundance in the Anthropocene.
[Society for Social Studies of Sciences Annual Meeting. Honolulu, 08.11.2023-11.11.2023]
Method of presentation: Přednáška
URL events: https://www.4sonline.org/final_program.php 
EU Projects: European Commission(CZ) 866350 - BOAR
Institutional support: RVO:68378076
Keywords : wild boar * Anthropocene * population * extinction * wildlife management
OECD category: Antropology, ethnology

Wild boar is among the most widely distributed large mammals across the world. It is classified as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Yet their perceived overabundance in Europe has recently raised serious concerns over human-wildlife conflict and emergent pathogenic ecologies. The epidemic of African Swine Fever is expected to kill one-quarter of the world’s domestic pig population by the end of next year, thus, endangering the pork industry. This paper investigates discourses on purity and sterility mobilized for the sake of biosecurity to explore how the interstice between domestication and wildness informs porcine-human relations. The porous intraspecies boundary between pigs and wild boars is analyzed from queer and feminist perspectives as the source of insecurities in the face of the disease to show how control over porcine sex in factory farming and wildlife management is key for the politics of purity at stake. Feral pigs and wild boar are considered invasive in many areas where they have been introduced, but even in their native range in Europe the latter also gained the status of unwanted pests whose populations are highly regulated with hunting and control over reproduction. This paper discusses the idea of wildlife overabundance as a facet of the Anthropocene that stands in direct contrast to the concerns over species extinction and biodiversity loss. Thinking with wild boar, and the long history of human-porcine relations, helps to reconceptualize the effects of the Anthropocene on species biopolitics.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0348165