Agustín Fuentes

Marcus Baynes-Rock

The Domestication of Australia's Fauna

Crocodile Undone

"An interdisciplinary study of the relationship between hyenas and the people of Harar, Ethiopia"--Provided by publisher.

Encounters with Hyenas in Harar

Among the Bone Eaters

Biologists studying large carnivores in wild places usually do so from a distance, using telemetry and noninvasive methods of data collection. So what happens when an anthropologist studies a clan of spotted hyenas, Africa’s second-largest carnivores, up close—and in a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants? In Among the Bone Eaters, Marcus Baynes-Rock takes us to the ancient city of Harar in Ethiopia, where the gey waraba (hyenas of the city) are welcome in the streets and appreciated by the locals for the protection they provide from harmful spirits and dangerous “mountain” hyenas. They’ve even become a local tourist attraction. At the start of his research in Harar, Baynes-Rock contended with difficult conditions, stone-throwing children, intransigent bureaucracy, and wary hyena subjects intent on avoiding people. After months of frustration, three young hyenas drew him into the hidden world of the Sofi clan. He discovered the elements of a hyena’s life, from the delectability of dead livestock and the nuisance of dogs to the unbounded thrill of hyena chase-play under the light of a full moon. Baynes-Rock’s personal relations with the hyenas from the Sofi clan expand the conceptual boundaries of human-animal relations. This is multispecies ethnography that reveals its messy, intersubjective, dangerously transformative potential.

Across the world, animals are being domesticated at an unprecedented rate and scale. But what exactly is domestication, and what does it tell us about ourselves? In this book, Marcus Baynes-Rock seeks the common thread linking stories about the domestication of Australia's native animals, arguing that domestication is part of a process by which late modernity threatens to undo the world. In a deeply personal account, the author tells of his encounters with crocodiles and emus behind fences, dingoes and kangaroos crossing boundaries, and native bees producing honey in his suburban backyard. Drawing on comparisons between Aboriginal and colonial Australians, Baynes-Rock reveals how the domestication of Australia’s fauna is a process of “unmaking.” As an extension of late modernity, the connections that tie humans and other animals to wider ecologies are being severed, threatening to isolate us and our domesticates from the rest of the world. It is here that Baynes-Rock reveals a key difference between Aboriginal and colonial Australian modes of landscape management: while one is focused on a systemic approach and sees humans as integral to ecological integrity, the other seeks to sever domesticates from ecological processes. The question that emerges is: How might we reconfigure and maintain these connections without undoing humanity? Written in the author’s characteristically frank, passionate, and humorous style, Crocodile Undone takes the reader on a journey across both physical and philosophical landscapes. This fascinating narrative will appeal to anyone interested in the vital connections between humans and animals.

Marcus Baynes-Rock

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