MATIN seminar – Aníbal G. Arregui
11/04/2024, 13h30-15h00 CET, Aníbal G. Arregui (Department of Social Anthropology, University of Barcelona) On pigs, prototypes and wild cities
Registration here: https://forms.gle/5Yxrbaa12jbQVQ8j6
On pigs, prototypes, and wild cities
The increasing presence of wild boars in cities testifies to a particular and destabilizing emergence of “the wild” in urban spaces. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Barcelona, in this presentation I describe a challenging ecological scenario which is championed by urban wild boars, a hybrid variety of feral pot-bellied pigs (known as “cerdolís” in vernacular taxonomy), and the suburban residents who encounter them daily. Both urban wild boars and feral (hybrid) pigs are the product of human actions on many scales, being the interlinking of climatic, infrastructural, genetic, and even affective dimensions very important to understand the existence and socioecological dynamics of these animals. My argument is that urban boars and hybrid pigs constitute socioecological “prototypes”, that is, creatures who enable relational experimentation and anticipate urban futures in which humans may need to invent new ways of coexisting with yet unseen, anthropogenic versions of the wild.

Biography
I am an environmental anthropologist interested in how humans remake their ecologies in the context of practical, quotidian, and creative encounters with other organisms. I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Brazilian Amazonia in quilombola and ribeirinho territories since 2006. In 2017 I started ethnographic research on the human-wild boar relations that are unfolding in suburban Barcelona, a project for which I am collaborating with veterinary scientists and conservation biologists. My research and publications are situated at the intersection of environmental anthropology, the anthropology of science, and multispecies ethnography. Currently, I am a Serra Húnter Lecturer at the department of Social Anthropology (University of Barcelona) and a member of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Berkowitz Heloise (15 février 2024). MATIN seminar – Aníbal G. Arregui . Managing & Assessing Transition Innovation Network. Consulté le 10 avril 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/vufx