Absent Interests: On the Abstraction of Human and Animal Milks (Human-animal Studies, 25)

Through a comparison of everyday practices surrounding dairy production and breastfeeding in Croatia, this book explores the way that humans work to transform milk into human or animal milks. Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgements Tables, Figures and Diagrams Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Species Body and Species Milk 2 Observing Milks 3 Milk Relations 4 (Dis)connection in Milk Relations 5 Practical Challenges 6 A Caveat 7 Road Map Chapter 2 Interests: The Quality and Quantity of Milks 1 Weights and Measures 2 Quantifying Production in the Hospital and at Home 3 Inheritance and Lactation Curves 4 Interests in the Quality of Milk 5 Selective Interests Chapter 3 Concepts: Good Milkers: Good Mothers; Bad Milkers: Bad Mothers 1 Delicate Eco(nomic)-Systems: The Economics of Animal Milk Production 2 The Kinship of Human Milk Relations 3 (De)personalising Milks Chapter 4 Documents: Documenting Milks 1 Cheese, Cheez and Goats 2 Documenting Milks 3 Not Just Legal Documents 4 Types of Milk Relations Chapter 5 Mothers and Infants: Narratives on Motherhood and Milk 1 Mother Milkmaid 2 Feeding the Family 3 Cows as Mothers 4 Geographies of Breastfeeding Chapter 6 Conclusion: Working Together on Abstraction Bibliography Index "How does milk become cow milk, donkey milk or human milk? When one closely explores this question, the species differences between milks is not as stable as one might initially assume, even if one takes an embodied perspective. To show this, this book takes readers through an ethnographic comparison of milk consumption and production in Croatia in a range of different social settings: on farms, in mother-infant breastfeeding relations, in food hygiene documentation and in the local landscape. It argues that humans actually invest considerable work into abstracting and negotiating milks into their human and animal forms"-- Provided by publisher