Introducing Bovine Regimes: When Animals Become Technologies

Abstract

Are animals technologies? This special issue centers on bovines to analyze the circumstances intertwining and merging the management and understanding of animals with technological systems. The geographically diverse historical and anthropological contributions employ temporality as a central lens to examine the changing proximity of animals to technology over time. Collectively, they demonstrate how bovine bodies have been important sites for manifesting the relationships between people, technology, and power structures. Such a relational animal-technology approach ultimately enriches the understanding of both technology and animality.