Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

REFIGURATION OF IDENTITIES AND FUTURES IN TIMES OF TRANSFORMATION 119Patterns and structures in human-animal relationsI would like to underline at least six general andenduring patterns that could be observed in humananimalrelations in Southeast Asia, which might evenapply beyond this region: (1) the role of domestication(after a long prehistory of hunting-gathering life), theresulting rise of agricultural village patches hedging onforests, and the emergence of enduring dichotomies thathave shaping effects on the lives of humans and animals:wild/tame, forest/village, ‘beastly animals’/‘humanehumans’ (a kind of post-neolithic pattern in humananimalrelations); (2) the adaptability of monkeys inexploiting the changing and increasingly constrainedlandscapes of the region (this could also be true of manyother animals, the crows of Japan being a celebratedexample); (3) the divergent effects on animals broughtabout by the expanding eco-tourism industry andglobalizing forces, as dramatized by the case of Bangkokstreet dogs and the obyek pariwisata monkeys of Bali;(4) over-conservation, the making of animal pests, andother unwanted by-products of some cultural practicesand/or human-dominated ecosystems; (5) the divergingkinds of animals given central importance in differentcognitive domains; and (6) (as an exploratory point)the interaction of several factors (e.g., tourist-villagescompared to non-touristic ones; city versus village) inshaping perceptions of animals. The main data to begiven here will touch on the results of the conductedsurvey.(1) Enduring dichotomies from the neolithic period andpost-domestication practicesThais have the sat pa/sat liang dichotomy to register thewild/tame binary, and this has variations in almost allgroups in Southeast Asia. This binary cannot be seenamong most surviving hunter-gatherer peoples of today, 6suggesting its emergence when humans entered theNeolithic Period and took seriously the growing path ofdomestication. Two consequences have since resultedfrom that point onward: (a) non-domesticated animals 7began to be construed as ‘beastly’ and ‘aggressive,’ 8partly as a result of simply their being not-tamed, andpartly as a result of ecological logic: some ‘wild animals’(like monkeys) are attracted to forage near the marginsof settled villages where crops and fruit-bearing treesare in great concentration; thus began the ‘naturalconflict’ between farmers and ‘pest animals;’ 9 (b) asknowledge of selective breeding increased, as a centraltool in domestication, there also resulted the growingpropensity of humans to selectively transform animalsbeyond the needs of sustenance. A result of this trendcan now be seen in the shaping of ‘sport animals’ likethe region-wide sabung (cockfighting), the southernThai wua chon (bull-fighting), and the Thai ‘fightingfish.’ The extent of reshaping that Southeast Asians havedone to these organisms, mental and physical, cannotbe over-emphasized. An interesting scientific study,for example, shows the hyper-aggressive behavior ofThai-breed fighting fishes compared to their ancestralspecies. 10(2) Adaptability of monkeys and other animals inimprovising ways of living in human-dominatedecosystems 11Udayana University-based primatologists havedocumented diverse forest patches, mostly with templesand thus considered sacred, which have been exploitedby monkeys (fascicularis macaques) as their territories.In Sangeh, the 10-12 hectares of dipterocarp forest, aSangeh Monkey Forest (Perimeter line of the Dipterocarp Forest is superimposed)Asian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows