Living with Livestock. Human-Animal Relations in Swedish Households, c. 1600-1800

The aim of the project is to investigate how men and women in early modern Sweden related to animals, by studying how they understood livestock to function physiologically and psychologically. A starting point is the human dependence on healthy livestock within households.

The subject is approached by a phenomenologically and ontologically informed reading of how animals were described as ill, disabled or distressed in court cases and veterinary manuals.

Research questions posed include how people interpreted animal’s behavior and body language; how they attributed intentionality and emotionality to them; what ontological notions of sameness and difference between humans and animals they embraced.By applying leading-edge anthropological theories, the project will give an important impetus to theoretical discussions within historical research.

By uncovering how ordinary people related to livestock, the project will deepen our understanding of households and challenge modernizing tendencies regarding human-animal relations prevalent in research on early modern scientific thought.

As the project provides an historical perspective on human-animal relations that still pervade the existential conditions of various indigenous people, it will additionally be able to provide informed knowledge to contemporary debates.The project will be executed at three universities with three specific competences of importance to it: history of households, history of the body, and animal history.