Liang Siran will discuss the human-yak relationship at 4800 meters altitude in Nagqu, China, on 15th December. She bases her ethnographic account on a four-month stay in a yak-herding village. Her presentation highlights the care in milking yaks, the changing seasonality, and the ethics involved in yak husbandry, scrutinizing the criticism of its ‚low productivity‘.
Abstract:
Drawing from my four months stay between 2021 and 2022 at a self-subsistence oriented yak-herding village and my bodily engagements with yaks in Nagqu (Tibetan autonomous region, China), I show how the human-yak relationship is established through attuning to each other in everyday life, a process that requires both yaks and humans to learn to live together. Based on my own learning of how to milk and herd yaks, I highlight the care involved in milking and the attunements to the changing seasonality on the grassland, contrasting to industrial animal husbandry where humans seek complete control over the biophysical elements. In addition, I present the ethics and reasoning in killing and liberating yaks. This chapter is an ethnographic account of a contemporary yak-human life way on the Tibetan highland, as well as a response to the mainstream criticism of the ‘low productivity’ of yak husbandry.
Ethnologie Chinas 