https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2637-396X
How does non-human agency factor in nation-building? Sakari Tamminen explores this question through several in-depth and rich empirical cases, weaving together ethnographic fieldwork on multiple sites. The empirical work ranges from historical analysis of the social construction of breeds to dissecting the functioning of the regulatory instruments of biodiversity governance. The first empirical chapter focuses on the Finncattle, exploring how the Finnish people and its bovine companions emerge through the history of Finnish nation-building to construct coherent socio-material narratives where technologies and mythologies are neatly intertwined. Chapter 2 presents the case of the Alexander apple, showcasing how genetic fingerprinting technique was used to construct genealogies to support national identity as well as biodiversity conservation. Tamminen reveals how molecular technologies and political and regulatory institutions come together to rearrange geographies and temporalities in their quest to define national genetic resources. In Chapter 3, Tamminen examines the complex materialities of technologically assisted reproduction and cryopreservation that are crucial for harnessing biological material for biodiversity conversation – as well for accelerating the efficacy and economization of today’s agri-business. Tamminen is at his strongest in detailed empirical descriptions, such as when he teases out how the materialities of sheep sperm factor in the commodification of the biovalue of the breed. In the final empirical chapter, Tamminen dissects how the various biosocial constructions that strive to take shape as national biowealth are negotiated and validated within legal and political institutions both at the global and national scale. Both the instruments under scrutiny, as well as the biological material they govern, appear thoroughly relational as well as alive.
Even readers unfamiliar to the themes at hand will find the book easy to access, as Tamminen has a gift of writing with clarity and simplicity about complex issues such as genomic technologies or biodiversity regulation. I can imagine chapters of this book being used as course material for students interested in rich ethnographic analyses weaving together STS-inspired theories. For example, the book will offer great discussion points on how concepts such as national heritage and identity are socio-materially constructed in heterogeneous assemblages of biology, technology, and regulation. At the same time, the relevance of the book moves far beyond its exemplary cases, as critical approaches to the discussions on nation-building and various genetic configurations seem increasingly relevant in today’s world.
Furthermore, the book succeeds in speaking to the anthropocentricity of the theories of nation-building, criticizing the lack of consideration for non-human agency. One of the core messages of the book is that nations and national imaginations are built as much through, and with, non-humans as humans. At the same time, I am less convinced that the book offers as much theoretical insights to the broadly defined and bourgeoning field of animal studies, where giving weight also to non-human agency is much less of a novelty than in social sciences. While Tamminen does a commendable job of exploring how the material agency of cattle, sheep (or apple) shape the institutions they are enrolled in, one is left wondering how they were themselves shaped in the process. How have animals fared in the “agro-capitalist machine” of breeding? How sheep, for example, fare in the conflicting trajectories of their conservation, on one hand, and their decreasing value and numbers as production animals on the other.
I would have also welcomed a methodological discussion on the challenges and potential limits of the chosen methods in terms of examining non-human agency. For example, Tamminen does not explore how more-than-human ethnographies (or historiographies) have or could have influenced the ethical and methodological choices of the research process. Various critical more-than-human geographies and ethnographies have taken issue with social scientific research on other animals where animals are treated not as sentient beings but as non-human matter – even if they are granted agency. The conventional ethical responsibilities of researchers have been increasingly called to be also extended to the other animals we study, exploring the potential of more-than-human research ethics based on care, cooperation and mutual respect. At the very least, this might mean stopping to consider the implications of the practices under scrutiny also for the other animals involved.
To conclude, Tamminen shows skill in drawing parallels from his various empirical cases to global biopolitics, underlining that the book has relevance much beyond the national context of Finland. The contribution of the book to critical discussions on the politics of life lies in highlighting the entangled relations between nation-building and biology, and the re-emergence of the nation as a crucial player in biopolitical battles. Furthermore, in a political climate where nations are increasingly interested in strengthening their borders – both physically and discursively – we will do well to remember Tamminen’s message about how new biotechnological relations and the related politics and institutions can expand territories and borders, but also redraw and reinforce existing ones.