RHN 83/2024 | Event
Organisers: Mieke Roscher, Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte (Human-Animal Studies), Universität Kassel
3–5 July 2024, Historisches Kolleg, Kaulbachstraße 15, 80539 München, Germany
Breedism and Racism. The Ideological Use of the Animal Body since 1800
Workshop
The workshop examines racialized practices generated by animal breeding that affected both animals and humans, categorizing, qualifying, and quantifying their abilities and performances. Dogs, horses, and other species served as essentialized markers for the ideas of “pure blood” and the connection to a perceived “homeland”, not only during the era of National Socialism. Throughout the 19th century, the century in which animal breeding became institutionalized, nationalist aspirations increasingly found an animal foundation. The eugenics movement, in particular, which gained prominence in the early 20th century, was rooted in the belief that the human race could be improved by selective breeding. Eugenics aimed to promote the reproduction of individuals with desirable traits while discouraging or preventing those with perceived undesirable traits from reproducing.
The connection between (political) racism and breeding was first addressed by Enrique Ucelay da Cal in 1992. He demonstrated how genealogies were used to create specific types of animals that were then intended to be associated with a particular place. Breeding allegedly “superior” animals to control allegedly “inferior” humans marked as racialized, according to da Cal, involved an “intentional blurring of the boundaries between human and animal.”[1] The racial/racist paradigm was linked to a notion of capability and performance, which also co-constructed the “other”, the “excludable”.
The workshop will pick up on da Cals analyses and widen it by using theoretical concepts of historical animal studies, gender studies, critical race studies as well as approaches offered by the history of science, ideas and the body. It asks how material-semiotic nodes, that determine how the boundaries (for example, between human and animal, but also between “race” and “breed”) are drawn and endowed with meaning through social and bodily interaction. Breeding "superior" animals is thus considered the performative tool through which semiotic projections of racial differences were solidified and embodied. This intersectional perspective seeks to understand how different forms of bias and prejudice overlapped, ultimately influencing the experiences of both animals and marginalized human communities. For this, the workshop brings together researchers who look at the relationship between animal breeding and racism from 1800 to the present from different spatial and temporal perspectives on the question.
[1] Da Cal, Enrique Ucelay. 1992. “The Influence of Animal Breeding on Political Racism.” History of European Ideas 15 (4–6): 717–25.
Program:
Wednesday, July 3, 2024
14:30–15:00 Mieke Roscher (München/Kassel)
Welcome and Introduction
Section I: Eugenics and Breeding: Hereditary Discourses
Chair: Mieke Roscher (München/Kassel)
15:00–16:00 Bert Theunissen (Utrecht/Netherlands)
Livestock Breeding, Eugenics, and Racism: Birds of a Feather?
16:00–17:00 Tom Quick (Maastricht, Netherlands)
Karl Pearson and the Making of a 'New Race' at the Start of the Twentieth Century
17:00-17.30 Break
Keynote: Chair: Christof Mauch (München)
17:30–18:30 Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch/South Africa)
Keynote: The Dogs of Apartheid: Race, Breed and Power
from 18:30 Reception in the Garden Hall of the Historisches Kolleg
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Section II: Finding Origins: Nationalizing Breeding
Chair: Gabriel Rosenberg (Durham, NC/USA)
9:00–10:00 Sophie Küsterling/Christina Späti, (Luzern/Fribourg, Switzerland)
Of Cattle and Men: The Search for Racial Origin in 19th Century Switzerland and Austria
10:00–11:00 Jadon Nisly-Goretzki (Kassel)
Degenerated Strains of Peasants and Cattle: Breeding Practices and Enlightenment Thought in Farm Account Books ca. 1750-1850
11:00–11:30 Coffee Break
11:30–12:30 Ulrike Heitholt (Kassel)
„Rasse“ and German Cattle Breeding in the 19th Century
12:30–14:00 Lunch Break
Section III: Breeding Racism: Colonial Legacies of Breeding
Chair: Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch/South Africa)
14:00–15:00 Dennis Yazici (Passau)
Between „raceless“ Cattle and „Pedigree Herds“. The Entanglement of Cattle Breeding and Racism in Colonial Namibia (1890-1925)
15:00–16:00 Matilde Cassano (Milan, Italy)
Taming Eastern Africa. Farming and Breeding during the Italian Colonization.
16:00–16:30 Coffee Break
16:30–17:30 Anne D. Peiter, (La Réunion)
Made big / Made small. On the History of Cattle Breeding and Racism in the Context of the Genocide against the Tutsis of Rwanda
17:30–19:00 Apéro in the Garden Hall of the Historisches Kolleg
Friday, July 5, 2024
Section IV: Spatializing Breed: Hybridizations
Chair: Bert Theunissen (Utrecht/ Netherlands)
9:00–10:00 Christina May (Halle a. d. Saale)
The universal Cattle – Concepts of Body and Landscape in the Breeding of Harz Red Cattle
10:00–11:00 Monica Vasile (Maastricht, Netherlands)
Breeding the Przewalski’s Horse: Hybridization, Wildness and Genetic Diversity in the History of a Zoo-based endangered Species
11:00–11:30 Coffee Break
11:30–12:30 Gabriel Rosenberg (Durham, NC/USA)
Closing Comments
12:30–13:00 Final Discussion
13:00 End of the Conference
There is some limited space for guests to attend the workshop. To participate, please send an email to Elisabeth Hüls (elisabeth.huels@historischeskolleg.de)
Contact Information
PD Dr. Mieke Roscher
Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte (Human-Animal Studies)
Universität Kassel
Contact Email
roscher@uni-kassel.de
URL
https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/fachgruppen-und-institute/geschichte/lehrgebiet/sozial-und-kulturgeschichte-human-animal-studies/pd-dr-mieke-roscher
More information here.