ABSTRACT

Domestication can sometimes seem to be taken for granted as a state of affairs the origins of which are lost in the mists of time, the effects of which will be with us forever. Domestication has been a traditional concern within anthropology, particularly within the subfields of archaeology and biological anthropology. It has been revived in the subfield of social anthropology, but in the mean time the understanding of domestication within the biological subdisciplines have changed. Social and cultural anthropologists also come to domestication via an intellectual trajectory that is strongly influenced by Marx. Social anthropologists are also interested in exploring the use of concepts of domestication to establish moral hierarchies, along with scholars from geography, philosophy, and science studies. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.