Breed Societies and the Geographies of Welsh Livestock

This paper uses Bourdieu’s (1977) concept of habitus to examine human-animal relationships within capitalist agricultural systems. The first part of the paper examines how Bourdieu’s ideas have been used by academics to provide insights into the ways that livestock affect and are affected by farming practice. The second part builds on these conceptual, empirical and policy insights by examining some of the national and international social networks that contribute to human-animal relationships in capitalistic farming. It focuses on a case study of Welsh livestock and, in particular, the historic and contemporary roles that breed societies play in the imagination of farm animals and the creation of capitals in agriculture