#explicitly embarked on as a form of cultural attack and attempted colonization and absorption | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

grison-in-space · 10 months ago

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Sometimes I daydream about checking in with the Salish to see if there's interest in reviving the Salish Woolly Dog, but. Yeah. There's... A whole lot of this nonsense in the space.

A majority of “indigenous dog breeds” are colonized in some way. Options include:

Given an arbitrary kennel club standard based on a limited population owned by aristocratic white people.

Stolen with their history completed rewritten and mythologized.

Created by white kennel club people and falsely attributed an indigenous past through breed myth.

Have their populations no longer under control of the population that made them in the first place.

Has its actual name replaced with a slur

“Breed split” where the actually indigenous dogs still owned by indigenous people have to go through meticulous trial and breeding to be accepted by the kennel club.

All of the above and more!

#This isn't specific to dogs either #I am looking at you Appaloosa Horse Club and I am doing it disrespectfully #I think the other important thing about dogs is that the emphasis on genetic isolation and the equivalent of blood quantum to define breeds #In general conformation oriented kennel clubs have histories that are almost inextricably tied to colonialist appropriation #The thing is that dogs are so culturally important and that importance is so political #And different cultures approach and understand them in very different ways #Anyway when I get too sad about it I go and read about Korean indigenous breed projects #Especially Sapsaree preservation #Also a useful case study for white dog people because in this case you're recovering from a recent attempt at breed extermination #explicitly embarked on as a form of cultural attack and attempted colonization and absorption #Deliberately and explicitly #In a very Victorian English peak cultural colonialism way #Uuuuuugh there's a tag out of order here I'm going to have to fix later #But the point I'm making is that we idealize and frame the genetic contribution from indigenous breed creators #Rather than the cultural perspective and goals of the people making selection decisions on the population of dogs #Something something here about how dog breeding has a history intimately tied to our understanding of racism also #Cf Holly Dunsworth's excellent paper on the subject #Because dogs are so incredibly plastic and culturally ubiquitous we act like dogs are a good metaphor for human genetic variation and boy no

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