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Human breastfeeding and animal milking: An ethnographic consideration of the exchange of milk in Croatia

is correlated with its intelligence has been taken into account the question of breastfeeding’s capacity to increase adult intelligence remains open.Political, ethical and cultural aspects of breastfeedingSuzana Ignjatović, Željka Buturović (Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia)In recent years, breastfeeding has been promoted not only as superior, but often as the only acceptable form of infant feeding. Many different actors campaign for breastfeeding: UN agencies, governments, media, and the academia. Among activists, breastfeeding is idealized as a magical elixir that prevents all kinds of risks and maximizes child’s potential ; popular culture features ‘brealfies’ made by celebrity mothers and tales of prolonged breastfeeding. However, despite current consensus in respect to superiority of breastfeeding, there are some signs of change: the debate between present-day “lactivists“ and “permissivists“ is slowly coming to the fore.This includes raising ethical questions such as: is breastfeeding always the preferable option? Should we, in some cases, tolerate potential health risks of breastfeeding? What are the emotional, physical, and social costs of breastfeeding for the mother and, indirectly, for the baby? The social and cultural context of breastfeeding in the modern Western societies has changed, too. Breastfeeding debate can be placed within the context of the new parental norms: sacrifice, child-centerdness, and prevention of all possible risks. Joan Wolf’s concepts of “risk culture“ and “total motherhood“ can be used in explanations of these social processes. Since throughout history, breastfeeding norms have often been imposed through political means it is not surprising that they are now becoming a political issue as well.The use of crying over spilled milk. A storied account of a lactating body in the workplaceNoortje van Amsterdam (Ùtrecht University, Netherland)In this paper I present a poem and an autoethnographic story about my experiences with expressing breast milk at a Dutch university department. My story illustrates how conflicting discourses about gender, motherhood, embodiment and professionalism became salient in and though my leaky maternal body. My story thus shows how my unruly, leaky, maternal body challenged the somatic norms that prevail in most academic settings. Additionally, the forms in which I present this material –poetry and narrative writing –aim to make visible and challenge dominant norms in academia concerning what we write and how we (can) write. The text in itself thus becomes an unruly body ; one that is meant to radically subvert dominant ontological and epistemological positions. I address these issues from a feminist poststructuralist and postmodern perspective. My aim is twofold: Firstly, I aim to show how the experiences I describe are part of a larger cultural framework of power structures that produce the feminine body as the Other, subject to (self-)discipline and marginalization –especially in theacademic context. Secondly, I aim to open up space for disrupting these normative constraints by breaking through the boundaries between self/Other, theory/narrative, inside/outside and public/private.Human breastfeeding and animal milking: An ethnographic consideration of the exchange of milk in CroatiaSarah Czerny (University of Rijeka, Croatia)I start this paper by ethnographically considering two forms of milk exchange relations in Croatia: human breastfeeding relations and animal milking relations. Here, I offer an account of the different forms these relations take, for instance between nursing women and babies, shepherds and sheep, or goat herders and goats. I point out that there are some notable points of difference in the exchange of milk in human breastfeeding and animal milking relations. For instance, in human breast feeding relations having knowledge of the individual identity of who is providing the milk is critical, whilst in animal milk relations this is not considered to be so important. Or the notion present in animal milking relations that there are ‘good milkers’ in terms of the breed of animal, which is something that is completely absent in human breastfeeding exchanges. However, even though there are these notable points of difference when one is making an interspecies comparison of milk exchanges, one area of striking similarity is that the concept of nature appears to play a pivotal role in shaping the form that all these relations take. I take this point and draw out the different permutations that nature takes in these exchanges: natural 'eco' milk, natural/unnatural milking relations, natural milking processes. Having done this I finish by asking how this interspecies comparison might contribute to current anthropological research on human breastfeeding.

Humans-animals, milk

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