----5 Worksheet: More-than-human care (Interactive Exercise)

Overview: More-than-human care

In the exercise you explore one of anthropology's biggest questions about care: who receives care, and why?

You will encounter people who treat pigs, goats, dogs, animals, spirits, and even some humans in unexpected ways. Rather than judging these practices, anthropologists try to understand the cultural beliefs, relationships, and circumstances that shape them.

Try to think about the examples using concepts we've already encountered, particularly:

• Culture: How do different societies understand care?
• Kinship: Who is treated as family? 
• The Gift: Is the care reciprocal?

Case Study 1: Pigs as Kin in Vanuatu

Based on Margaret Jolly, "Pig Love"

In Vanuatu, pigs are not just livestock. They are kin—named, raised with affection, and even suckled by human women.

“In some places a woman’s relation to her pigs becomes frankly maternal... including lactating women suckling piglets.”

Jolly describes this emotional and embodied intimacy as part of what Harris called a “state of total community” between human and pig:

“Pig love includes raising pigs to be a member of the family, sleeping next to them, talking to them, stroking and fondling them, calling them by name, leading them on a leash to the fields, weeping when they fall sick... The climax of pig love is the incorporation of the pig as flesh into the flesh of the human host and of the pig as spirit into the spirit of the ancestors" (Harris, 1977, p. 39).

Though these pigs are cared for deeply, they are also given in sacrifice to mark major life events like naming ceremonies, marriages, and deaths.

“Pigs are an intrinsic part of the transactions surrounding all life crises... they are a part of the cycle of payments to one’s kin and affines.”

Far from being a contradiction, this sacrificial aspect is what makes pigs part of a larger network of obligation, kinship, and spiritual exchange. In some parts of Melanesia, pigs are even believed to have souls, and their slaughter is a feast for both the living and the dead.

Questions

Culture and Care

What does “pig love” in Vanuatu show us about how people care for animals? How is this care different from the way people usually treat animals in your own culture?

Kinship and Care
In what ways do people treat pigs like part of the family? How does caring for pigs connect to important life events like birth, marriage, or death?

The Gift and Care
If pigs are lovingly raised and then sacrificed, is that a kind of gift? How does care make this kind of giving different from just handing something over or buying it?

Case Study 2 – The Goat Who Gave Herself

Based on Radhika Govindrajan, “The Goat That Died for Family” (2015)

In Uttarakhand, India, goats are not treated as mere livestock either. They are raised in close proximity to humans, fed and nurtured like children, and understood through bodily cues and gestures. Villagers describe this relationship using the term mamta, or maternal love.

“They cannot speak, but they have a language... You feel mamta for them as you do for your children... We may not give birth [to these animals], but we raise them like mothers. They consider us mothers too.”

Yet these animals may also be sacrificed. Families speak of goats who show willingness—kneeling before shrines or shaking off rice and water sprinkled on their backs—as signs of consent. If a goat does not shake, the sacrifice is cancelled. The decision to sacrifice is framed not as cruelty, but as mutual obligation and spiritual duty.

“By dying in place of a human family member, some women said, goats repay the care they receive, much as children in the past consented to their sacrifice for the sake of the family.”

Govindrajan argues that this moment of death does not sever the bond between human and animal—it confirms it.

“I contend that animal sacrifice is itself constitutive of interspecies kin relations. The spectacular act of violence at the heart of sacrifice... is crucial to the constitution of kin solidarity between human sacrificer and animal victim.”

This is not a painless act. Grief, love, pride, and devotion are deeply entangled. In this world of interspecies kinship, sacrifice is not seen as the end of care, but its ultimate form.

Questions

Culture & Care

What does this story show about how people in Uttarakhand care for animals? How is this kind of care different from (or similar to) how animals are treated in your own culture?

Kinship & Care

The villagers say they feel mamta (maternal love) for their goats. How do they show this care in daily life? Do you think this kind of love makes the goat part of the family?

The Gift & Care

When the goat is sacrificed to help the family, some people say she is returning the care she received. Can a gift of care be repaid like this? Why might this feel different from giving away a thing?

Case Study 3: Ojibwe reciprocal relations with other-than-human persons

Based on A. Irving Hallowell, “Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View”

For the Ojibwa people of North America, care and respect are not limited to humans. In their world, many beings are considered persons—including animals, stones, trees, thunderbirds, and even some stars. These persons can think, feel, act, and respond—and they are part of a shared moral universe.

Here, moral does not just mean “knowing right from wrong” in a legal or religious sense. It refers to a set of mutual responsibilities and obligations that bind humans and other-than-human persons together. In this moral universe, how you act toward others—whether human or not—affects the relationship, with real consequences for both sides.

Hallowell writes:

“The world of the Ojibwa is filled with other-than-human persons who are not conceptualized as things but as beings with whom one can enter into social relationships.”

These relationships are not just symbolic. Ojibwa hunters speak directly to animals they kill and show them respect through rituals like returning their bones to water. This is not because the animal is simply a ‘resource,’ but because it is a person who has given itself and deserves to be treated with care.

Mistreating these beings—such as showing cruelty or ignoring proper rituals—breaks the moral relationship and can lead to serious consequences, like illness or lack of food. Hallowell explains that mutual respect and obligation guide how humans and other-than-human persons interact:

“Conduct toward animals must be proper. Otherwise, the offended master of the animal species may withdraw his goodwill and no more animals will be sent.”

So, does this count as care? While it may not look like affection in the way people treat pets, it involves ongoing attention, responsibility, and moral awareness—core parts of what we call "care".

Questions:

Culture & Care

The Ojibwa say many animals and spirits are persons. What kind of care or respect do they show these beings? How is this way of thinking different from the culture you grew up in?

Kinship & Care

Can humans and nonhumans be part of the same moral family? Here, moral means being connected through shared responsibilities and obligations, not just rules about right and wrong. How do Ojibwa ideas of mutual obligation shape the way they live with other beings?

The Gift & Care

If an animal gives itself to a hunter, how does the hunter repay that gift? What makes this exchange more than just survival?

Case Study 4: Not caring for human non-persons

In "Death Without Weeping", Nancy Scheper-Hughes describes life in a Brazilian shantytown where poverty, hunger, and high infant mortality shape how mothers care for their children. Many infants die from malnutrition and disease, and mothers learn to distinguish between babies who seem likely to survive and those who appear weak, sickly, or "wanting to die." Rather than becoming deeply attached to every newborn immediately, some mothers delay emotional investment until a child's survival seems more certain:

In their slowness to anthropomorphize and personalize their infants, everything is mobilized so as to prevent maternal overattachment and, therefore, grief at deat

Scheper-Hughes argues that this is not because these women lack love or compassion, but because they are living in conditions where child death is common and resources are scarce. In such circumstances, what appears to outsiders as indifference may be a painful survival strategy shaped by poverty and inequality.

Questions

Kinship & Care
Why do some mothers in the Alto do Cruzeiro delay becoming emotionally attached to newborn babies? What does this tell us about the relationship between kinship and survival? 

Culture & Care
Scheper-Hughes argues that ideas about motherhood are shaped by social and economic conditions. What does this story suggest about how culture influences the way people care for children? 

Gender & Care
Many people assume that mothers naturally care equally for all their children. How does Scheper-Hughes challenge this assumption? What factors make caring easier or harder? 

Lohmann, R. I. (2025). Dogs and Their Humans in Pacific Island Interspecies Cultures. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Case study 5. Arapesh Dogs

Lohman, "Human-Canine Interspecies Cultures", in Lohmann, R. I. (2025). Dogs and Their Humans in Pacific Island Interspecies Cultures. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Lohmann describes research by Dobrin as follows:

In ...“What Arapesh Dogs Mean: The Figure of the Talk­ing Dog on New Guinea’s Sepik Coast”, Lise M. Dobrin reports that dogs  feature in local stories as heroes able to bridge gaps between different language groups. They are also valued exchange partners who give their  humans the meat they catch in the hunt, and in return receive care and  feeding. Dogs are reputed to have formerly been able to talk, and indeed, to have been able to change into human beings...An elderly woman told  Dobrin that her parents instructed her not to hit dogs, because they are  really people, and their cries reflect linguistic utterances. Yet people also  frequently express disappointment in their dogs, who do not provide or share as freely as their ideal reputation would have it. This only makes them resemble real people all the more in Arapesh estimation. "

Questions:

Kinship & Care

Why do the Arapesh treat dogs like people or family members rather than just animals?

Culture & Care
What does this story tell us about how Arapesh culture understands the relationship between humans and animals?

The Gift & Care
Dogs give meat to humans and humans give care and food to dogs. How is this an example of gift exchange?

Conclusion

These case studies show that care is not simply natural or automatic. Different societies decide differently who (or what) deserves care.