Cross-species emotional political ecology in rural Pakistan

Abstract

This article engages cross-species intersectionality and emotional political ecology to evaluate a dairy extension service that ran in Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan, between 2012 and 2017. The project aimed to mitigate potential negative impacts of implementation, such as the exacerbation of pre-existing social inequality, by applying principles of women’s agency and empowerment in project design. Evidence from the two case study villages reveals how social difference (caste and class) shape women’s access to extension meetings and the resources to implement practices. The evidence also reveals that through cattle work woman cultivate an emotional bond with their animals, given the multiple instrumental and sociocultural values they represent for households. Singh (2013) provides a definition of the agentic potential of this emotional bond as the ‘ability to affect and be affected.’ The higher socioeconomic classes that had good access to the extension service were able to improve animal welfare and milk production through which they cultivated satisfaction, pride and independence. Alternatively, women expressed feelings of longing or boredom in the absence of this invaluable resource in their lives. This article confirms the importance of intersectionality for designing interventions that are sensitive to inter and intra household dynamics and that cross-species relations form pivotal axes for social difference. These cross-species relations cultivate emotions/affect during engagement with the extension service.