Body to body with cows: interbody perception between farmers and cows in the north of Santiago del Estero

Abstract

This article analyzes the inter-body perception between humans and cattle, which were raised and commercialized as commodity. It takes as an empirical reference a family of puesteros who lives in the Alberdi department, located in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero. The text contributes to the understanding of the characteristics assumed by the perceptual, gestural and affective links between humans and bovine animals of a socio-technical network of extensive forest breeding. It is argued that this interaction between species results in a particular form of affective, sentient and individuated inter-bodily connection with bovine alterities, and, at the same time, in an asymmetric technical and commercial bond. Thus, in the experience of the cows coexist the duality of being objects-commodities and living/sentient beings, two forms of perception that at first could seem contradictory.