Lamb description: combining scientific and subjective knowledge

What is it about?

Swakara is a Namibian sheep used for pelt production for the global fashion industry. When a Swakara lamb is born, it is immediately described and selected for either pelt or meat production or for further breeding. The practice of describing lambs and selecting them is the most valued knowledge practice in this industry. In this practice, expert knowledge that is both scientific and practical is combined. With historical roots in German colonisation, it is not innocent. However, it destabilises clear binaries of nature/culture; subjective/objective and reason/emotion. In lamb description, experts and their knowledge, as well as the objects of their knowledge mutually enact each other. It is a relational knowledge practice. Although it is based on a strict set of standards, lamb description always relates to the context it is embedded within. This includes the economic context, as well as the social relations of the description situation. In this case, subjectivity and objectivity do not contradict each other. Instead, they became blurred in an inter-subjective knowledge practice. Individual farmers’ ability to see and feel a lamb is entangled with the industry standards, the categories according to which a lamb is judged. With the Swakara industry in crisis, the meaning of lamb description changes. At a time when pelt prices were low and meat prices were high, performing lamb description became a way of maintaining social relations and identities. Lamb description is both a result of and a condition for the formation of Swakara identities.

Featured Image

Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash

Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash