This article explores human-animal relationships in the North by calling for a fresh examination of the infrastructures and architectures which inscribe them. We draw attention to the self-limiting quality of Arctic architectures which are designed to emphasize mutual autonomy. This approach challenges models that would create a crisp, clear separation between domestication as constituting a form of domination or a type of mutualism. By describing several key infrastructures of domestication -of tethers, enclosures, and traps -we hope to draw attention to the silencing of these domestic inventories. Revisiting the metaphor of the domus, we focus on the lands where these relationships are elaborated, re-linking Arctic architectures to places of encounter. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork mainly from Northern North America and various sites in Northern Eurasia, we present an ethnographically informed account that stresses the nuanced way in which strategies of control are blended with those of care and comfort, creating unbounded homes that are good to live in.This article explores human-animal relationships by examining the architectures inscribing them. Challenging stark dichotomies wherein domestication is seen as necessarily dominating, or at heart mutualistic, we propose an ethnographically informed account focusing on strategies of control, but also on those of care and comfort, which are delineated by evocative objects and structures. By paying attention to the material architectures of domestication -of tethers, enclosures, and traps -we highlight the silencing of domestic inventories. Rather than assuming that a single bridle dug from a Neolithic excavation, or a fenced enclosure in the taiga, 'stand for' the dreary domination of human over animal, we are asking readers to take a second look to imagine these artefacts as pointing to an architecture of relationships.Our examples come almost exclusively from the North -Northern North America and Northern Eurasia -and this is for several reasons. Within the regions of the world where domestication has been interrogated, there has been a surprising overemphasis on places such as the Near East, China, or the temperate zones of the Americas as so-called 'centres of domestication' . The dominant narrative has been that domestication -as if it were a standard recipe -was achieved once in a particular place, and then spread to other parts of the world. This fairy tale of how physically distinct dogs, maize, or horses colonized the rest of the planet has been shown to be
This article explores human-animal relationships in the North by calling for a fresh examination of the infrastructures and architectures which inscribe them. We draw attention to the self-limiting quality of Arctic architectures which are designed to emphasize mutual autonomy. This approach challenges models that would create a crisp, clear separation between domestication as constituting a form of domination or a type of mutualism. By describing several key infrastructures of domestication -of tethers, enclosures, and traps -we hope to draw attention to the silencing of these domestic inventories. Revisiting the metaphor of the domus, we focus on the lands where these relationships are elaborated, re-linking Arctic architectures to places of encounter. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork mainly from Northern North America and various sites in Northern Eurasia, we present an ethnographically informed account that stresses the nuanced way in which strategies of control are blended with those of care and comfort, creating unbounded homes that are good to live in.This article explores human-animal relationships by examining the architectures inscribing them. Challenging stark dichotomies wherein domestication is seen as necessarily dominating, or at heart mutualistic, we propose an ethnographically informed account focusing on strategies of control, but also on those of care and comfort, which are delineated by evocative objects and structures. By paying attention to the material architectures of domestication -of tethers, enclosures, and traps -we highlight the silencing of domestic inventories. Rather than assuming that a single bridle dug from a Neolithic excavation, or a fenced enclosure in the taiga, 'stand for' the dreary domination of human over animal, we are asking readers to take a second look to imagine these artefacts as pointing to an architecture of relationships.Our examples come almost exclusively from the North -Northern North America and Northern Eurasia -and this is for several reasons. Within the regions of the world where domestication has been interrogated, there has been a surprising overemphasis on places such as the Near East, China, or the temperate zones of the Americas as so-called 'centres of domestication' . The dominant narrative has been that domestication -as if it were a standard recipe -was achieved once in a particular place, and then spread to other parts of the world. This fairy tale of how physically distinct dogs, maize, or horses colonized the rest of the planet has been shown to be
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