TRACING WOLVES Andrew Mitchell Tracing Wolves Materiality, Effect and Difference Andrew Mitchell ©Andrew Mitchell, Stockholm University 2018 ISBN print 978-91-7797-193-1 ISBN PDF 978-91-7797-194-8 ISSN 0347-0830 Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2018 Distributor: Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University Cover photo by author Contents Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................v Introduction | Human-wolf relations ................................................................1 Methodology and research questions............................................................................2 Summary of chapters ....................................................................................................8 Wolf Island ....................................................................................................................9 Swedish ‘nature’: a wolf in the garden.........................................................................12 Have you ever seen a wolf?........................................................................................15 Chapter 1 | Wolves in Euro-American thought..............................................21 Gendering wolves .......................................................................................................23 Animal categories: wolves the ultimate ‘other’.............................................................29 Evolution, classification and domestication .................................................................34 ‘The moral boundary’: breeding, inbreeding and genetic defects ................................39 Conclusions ................................................................................................................44 Chapter 2 | The animal subject: tracing the other, tracing the wolf...............47 The phenomenon we call ‘wolf’ ...................................................................................50 Nothing but a trace: ‘observable traces’ and the effects of relations............................52 Toward a more agential-realist holism.........................................................................59 Tracing relations .........................................................................................................62 Power relations and ‘constitutive practices’.................................................................66 Effects and ‘material-discursive practices’...................................................................69 Species as a power relation, difference and the ‘other’ ...............................................72 Tracing the subject......................................................................................................75 Empathy and embodied vision ....................................................................................81 Towards a transspecific sociality.................................................................................84 Conclusions ................................................................................................................86 Chapter 3 | Keeping track: wolf tracking technologies and practices ...........89 Tracking wolves with dogs and satellites.....................................................................89 Wolves with mobile phone numbers............................................................................97 Night tracking training with dogs .................................................................................98 What’s in a wolf collar? .............................................................................................100 Killing collars, killing wolves ......................................................................................102 Dog collars and killing bears .....................................................................................103 Dog collars and hunting moose.................................................................................107 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................111 Chapter 4 | Snow and the ‘science’ of controlling the ‘other’ ......................113 Waiting for the snow..................................................................................................113 The snow window opens...........................................................................................115 Tracking with Bo .......................................................................................................118 Power and gender: hierarchy in the woods ...............................................................126 Scientific research and management ........................................................................131 Capture science ........................................................................................................133 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................135 Chapter 5 | Domesticating the Scandinavian wolf ......................................137 ‘Genetically effective’ wolves.....................................................................................138 Inbreeding vortex ......................................................................................................143 Genetic reinforcement: building bridges and connectivity..........................................147 Scandinavians versus immigrants.............................................................................152 Species specific primers: wolf or dog? ......................................................................154 Hybrids and ‘genetic integrity’ ...................................................................................159 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................163 Chapter 6 | Wolf matters: materiality and the wolf ......................................167 The Swedish National Veterinary Institution (SVA) ...................................................168 The three little bears .................................................................................................173 Contamination and parasites.....................................................................................176 ‘No wildlife in Sweden’: the wild and domestic divide ................................................181 Pain and suffering .....................................................................................................185 Wolf necropsy: ‘feeling for the animals’ .....................................................................187 De-subjectification, species boundaries and the nature of sentience ........................189 Species bias and sentience.......................................................................................192 How to boil a wolf: starting at the Natural History Museum .......................................193 Drying the wolf ..........................................................................................................202 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................204 Chapter 7 | Wolf harvest: the material-spectacle of death..........................207 Howling on the ice.....................................................................................................208 The harvest begins....................................................................................................210 Wolf hunt, day one: hanging around and getting lost.................................................211 Tracing death ............................................................................................................213 Mourning in the snow ................................................................................................218 Who is tracking whom? .............................................................................................221 Lonely wolf: the one that got away ............................................................................224 Joining the wolf hunt inventory further north..............................................................225 Conclusions ..............................................................................................................229 Conclusion | Post-wolf: on the trail of what it means to be human .............231 Sammanfattning på svenska.......................................................................237 Att spåra vargar ........................................................................................................237 References..................................................................................................241 Websites ...................................................................................................................251 Musical Symphony ....................................................................................................251 Films .........................................................................................................................251 Acknowledgments I would initially like to thank all the people who have guided me during fieldwork whilst on the trail of the Scandinavian wolf, particularly those who appear in the text and have provided continual support throughout