University of Helsinki
Victoria Peemot gave a talk “A Kin, Adversary, and an Intermediary: the Wolf Among the Pastoralists in the Altai and Saian Mountains” at the AMI (Animals Make Identities) Zoom seminar series, University of Helsinki.
I analyse a confrontation between one she-wolf and a multispecies community, comprising several herding families with their domesticated animals, which happened in the Tes river area, the Tyva Republic, in summer 2019. I draw on this case-study and other encounters with a wolf (Canis lupus) during fieldwork in the transboundary region between the Altai and Saian Mountains to seek answers to the following research questions:
• How do we understand the pastoralists’ conflicting attitudes towards a wolf?
• What are the customary regulations of the relationship between a multispecies community and a wolf?
• How are the landscapes and domesticated and wild animals participate in the dynamic knowledge exchange between herders and wolves?
Photo by Aija Macane.
Mapping a wolf story @Victoria Peemot.