What is it about?
In 2002 the highlands of Bolivia were hit by catastrophic and unseasonal heavy snow falling in what is normally the dry season. In the remote southwest of the country the snowstorm resulted in the deaths of thousands of domestic llamas and imperilled the livelihoods of Indigenous Andean herders. Through an ethnographic focus on a small herding community, this chapter examines the context and aftermath of the disaster, focusing on relations between humans and llamas and how these relations were altered by the catastrophe. It concludes that the death of animals on such a large scale broke bonds of trust and obligation between humans and animals, thus imperilling the very relation of domestication. It documents the work, both practical and ritual, that herders needed to perform in order to restore relations with their animals.
Featured Image
Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash
Why is it important?
While the chapter focuses on just one example of catastrophic weather, the snowfall it depicts exemplifies the type of extreme meteorological event that is becoming more frequent with human-induced climate change. Rather than offering a top-down view of climate-change or making generalised claims about the phenomenon, the chapter offers a bottom-up perspective, depicting its effects on Indigenous people. It examines their perceptions of adverse meteorological events and their responses to them.
Perspectives
I found writing this chapter important, since the snowfall of 2002 had such an impact on the Indigenous herders I knew and formed the backdrop to my subsequent ethnographic work in the south of Bolivia. Events such as this are likely to become more frequent with climate change, so that understanding their effects on the people affected by them at a local level becomes ever more imperative.
Maggie Bolton
University of Aberdeen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Fragility of Relations of Domestication: Humans, Llamas, and Unseasonal Snow in the Bolivian Andes, July 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004679450_007.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
