Books by Muhammad A Kavesh
Animal Enthusiasms: Life Beyond Cage and Leash in Rural Pakistan, 2021
Animal Enthusiasms explores how human-animal relationships are conceived, developed, and carried ... more Animal Enthusiasms explores how human-animal relationships are conceived, developed, and carried out in rural Pakistani Muslim society through an examination of practices such as pigeon flying, cockfighting, and dogfighting. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork carried out between 2008 and 2018 in rural South Punjab, the book examines the crucial cultural concept of shauq (enthusiasm) and provides critical insight into the changing ways of life in contemporary Pakistan. It tracks the relationships between men mediated by non-human animals and discusses how such relationships in rural areas are coded in complex ways. The chapters draw on debates around transformations of animal activities over time, the changing forms of human-animal intimacy and their impact on familial relationships, and rural Punjabi values attached to the performance of masculine honour. The book will be of interest to scholars of anthropology, multi-species ethnography, gender and masculinity studies, and South Asian studies.
Papers by Muhammad A Kavesh
Demystifying the Promise of Sustainability through the China-Pakistan Donkey Trade
Routledge eBooks, Dec 6, 2023
The senses and society, 2025
Focusing on the body beyond the face allows multispecies anthropology
to embrace a multisensory p... more Focusing on the body beyond the face allows multispecies anthropology
to embrace a multisensory perspective, opening new possibilities
for detecting and understanding the subtleties of
interspecies connectedness. The body, transcending any single
sense, reveals its multisensorial potentialities: touch evokes emotions,
sight inspires visions, hearing deepens into attentive listening,
taste fosters companionship, and smell rekindles memories.
Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s views on the body
and my ethnographic work with pigeons and donkeys in Pakistan,
this article contends that a bodily oriented, sense-based approach
has the potential to generate new forms of knowledge and reimagine
relationships that transcend species boundaries.
Routledge eBooks, Oct 9, 2023
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and e... more Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Phillip Vannini; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Phillip Vannini to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
American Anthropologist
What do the welcome and the refusal mean when the one who arrives is not human? By examining the ... more What do the welcome and the refusal mean when the one who arrives is not human? By examining the moral attitude created through the acceptance of European racing pigeons in Pakistan and the capture of Pakistani “spy pigeons” at the India‐Pakistan border, this article unknots multiple meanings of arrival and explores how shared values of hospitality and hostility emerge and interplay when a more‐than‐human Other arrives in a foreign land as an invited guest or an uninvited intruder. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's (2000) construction of hostpitality and Punjabi Sufi poet‐philosopher Waris Shah's discussion of badal (reciprocity), this article contends that in South Asia, reciprocal exchanges produce and sustain cooperative, competitive, or antagonistic bonds and propound an analytical avenue to critically rethink deconstruction of the home as a sovereign space.
American Ethnologist, Jul 13, 2023
The imperial underpinning of the early anthropology of Pakistan constituted "the other" as a subj... more The imperial underpinning of the early anthropology of Pakistan constituted "the other" as a subject of comprehension, categorization, and containment. Later, with the post-9/11 geopolitical backdrop, anthropologists focused on selected themes such as religious and ethnic disparity and political nationalism, eliding some topics or groups. What would it mean for the anthropology of Pakistan to consider alienated themes and groups while emphasizing the infinity of the Other? How would conceiving the Other beyond a political or religious other, or even beyond a human subject, create a possibility of decolonizing the anthropology of Pakistan while exploring multiple futures-emergent, imagined, and expected? Such an approach critically moots a reexamination of theoretical, methodological, and epistemological tenets and urges the discipline to engage with diverse lifeworlds. It brings the face of the Other face-to-face with anthropology beyond humanity to consider all beings, intersubjective and collaborative experiences, and shared values. alterity, anthropology beyond humanity, anthropology of Pakistan, decolonization, Jacques Derrida, infinity, Emmanuel Levinas, multispecies anthropology, the face of the other "Hum kabūtar ky mun ¯ky pechy mil rahy haīn ¯, aisy nā?" (We are meeting because of the pigeon's face, aren't we?) Lala Akhtar Ali said this to me when I asked him about the place pigeons occupied in his life. 1 Lounging on his old wicker chair in the sitting room, his eyes shining behind thin metalrimmed glasses, he quipped, "If it were not for the pigeons, we may have never met." Famous as Lala Ji (Punjabi: Respected Brother), he founded Kabūtar Parwarī, an independent pigeon sports magazine, in 2008. Based in the city of Gujrat, Pakistan, the magazine covered pigeon competitions across the country's four provinces. When I began my research on high-flying tippler pigeons in central Punjab, many pigeon fliers suggested I contact Lala Ji-the primary source of information regarding pigeon flying. When we finally connected, my first impression of this elderly, silver-haired man was overwhelming: he knew all types of pigeon competitions, pigeon breeds, and pigeon fliers; kept the phone numbers of thousands of aficionados in his diary; and possessed important books and copies of significant archival material produced on pigeons since precolonial times.
Beyond Cage and Leash: Human-Animal Relations in Rural Pakistan
This thesis is an ethnographic inquiry into human-animal relations through an examination of thre... more This thesis is an ethnographic inquiry into human-animal relations through an examination of three types of activities: pigeon flying, cockfighting, and dogfighting. By explaining the life trajectories of the animal keepers, their personal experiences, and social stigmatisation, the thesis explores how human-animal relationships are conceived, developed, and carried out in South Punjab. As a multispecies ethnography, the thesis illustrates diverse modalities of inter-species intimacy, the social worlds of the animal keepers, and their symbolic expectations from the animals. I contend that these three animal activities are not unique and independent phenomena, but a lens through which one can understand different value systems and normative relations in rural Punjab. Developing the concepts of anthropology of life and more-than-human sociality, the thesis argues that those who engage in these animal activities regard their animals as a key for exploring, enhancing, and refining their own life needs and ambitions. As such, each pigeon in the flock, and a rooster or a canine, is considered an individual with a distinct personality, needs, and attitude. Through a close examination of how these men care for and conceive of their animals, I argue that this more-than-human relationship enables them to cultivate the self, gain pleasure, accumulate social capital, and engage in the production of masculinity. The rural South Punjabi men indulge in and adopt these three animal activities as their shauq. "Shauq" is the local term commonly used to emphasise any activity that is routinely carried out to fulfil a personal passion. The animal keepers' shauq, they maintain, enables them to find great joy, freedom, fulfilment, and a sense of wellbeing to counteract the confines of everyday social and familial obligations. While explaining the different modalities of human-animal relationships, this thesis interrogates the notion of shauq, as an ideology and a practice, and one that transforms the men's lives, re-defines their soci [...]
Beyond Cage and Leash: Human-Animal Relations in Rural Pakistan
This thesis is an ethnographic inquiry into human-animal relations through an examination of thre... more This thesis is an ethnographic inquiry into human-animal relations through an examination of three types of activities: pigeon flying, cockfighting, and dogfighting. By explaining the life trajectories of the animal keepers, their personal experiences, and social stigmatisation, the thesis explores how human-animal relationships are conceived, developed, and carried out in South Punjab. As a multispecies ethnography, the thesis illustrates diverse modalities of inter-species intimacy, the social worlds of the animal keepers, and their symbolic expectations from the animals. I contend that these three animal activities are not unique and independent phenomena, but a lens through which one can understand different value systems and normative relations in rural Punjab. Developing the concepts of anthropology of life and more-than-human sociality, the thesis argues that those who engage in these animal activities regard their animals as a key for exploring, enhancing, and refining their own life needs and ambitions. As such, each pigeon in the flock, and a rooster or a canine, is considered an individual with a distinct personality, needs, and attitude. Through a close examination of how these men care for and conceive of their animals, I argue that this more-than-human relationship enables them to cultivate the self, gain pleasure, accumulate social capital, and engage in the production of masculinity. The rural South Punjabi men indulge in and adopt these three animal activities as their shauq. "Shauq" is the local term commonly used to emphasise any activity that is routinely carried out to fulfil a personal passion. The animal keepers' shauq, they maintain, enables them to find great joy, freedom, fulfilment, and a sense of wellbeing to counteract the confines of everyday social and familial obligations. While explaining the different modalities of human-animal relationships, this thesis interrogates the notion of shauq, as an ideology and a practice, and one that transforms the men's lives, re-defines their soci [...]
American Anthropologist, 2023
What do the welcome and the refusal mean when the one who arrives is not human? By examining the ... more What do the welcome and the refusal mean when the one who arrives is not human? By examining the moral attitude created through the acceptance of European racing pigeons in Pakistan and the capture of Pakistani "spy pigeons" at the India-Pakistan border, this article unknots multiple meanings of arrival and explores how shared values of hospitality and hostility emerge and interplay when a more-than-human Other arrives in a foreign land as an invited guest or an uninvited intruder. Drawing on Jacques Derrida's (2000) construction of hostpitality and Punjabi Sufi poet-philosopher Waris Shah's discussion of badal (reciprocity), this article contends that in South Asia, reciprocal exchanges produce and sustain cooperative, competitive, or antagonistic bonds and propound an analytical avenue to critically rethink deconstruction of the home as a sovereign space.
American Ethnologist, 2023
The imperial underpinning of the early anthropology of Pakistan constituted "the other" as a subj... more The imperial underpinning of the early anthropology of Pakistan constituted "the other" as a subject of comprehension, categorization, and containment. Later, with the post-9/11 geopolitical backdrop, anthropologists focused on selected themes such as religious and ethnic disparity and political nationalism, eliding some topics or groups. What would it mean for the anthropology of Pakistan to consider alienated themes and groups while emphasizing the infinity of the Other? How would conceiving the Other beyond a political or religious other, or even beyond a human subject, create a possibility of decolonizing the anthropology of Pakistan while exploring multiple futures-emergent, imagined, and expected? Such an approach critically moots a reexamination of theoretical, methodological, and epistemological tenets and urges the discipline to engage with diverse lifeworlds. It brings the face of the Other face-to-face with anthropology beyond humanity to consider all beings, intersubjective and collaborative experiences, and shared values.
Women and plant entanglements: pulses commercialization and care relations in Punjab, Pakistan
Oxford Development Studies
Commercialization of agriculture in patriarchal rural Pakistan has transformed women’s critical r... more Commercialization of agriculture in patriarchal rural Pakistan has transformed women’s critical roles in pulses production and has re-organised the gendered division of labour in what used to be widely known as a ‘women’s crop’. Pulses are grown in the marginal and arid lands by small-holder farming families where women care for the crops as an extension of their other caring roles for the households. Based on an ethnographic study of women pulse farmers in Pakistan, this paper examines the complex relations of women with the crop and the challenges they face. It argues that the restoration of a caring relationship between women and the pulses crop through a re-animation of multispecies contact zones may be a way to ensure everyday food provisioning in rural Punjab, maintain traditional socio-cultural and ecological relationships, understand the masculinity that has pushed women to the margins, and value women’s contribution, experience, and knowledge in agriculture.
The Journal of Asian Studies, Apr 3, 2023
Despite the inven tion and sophis ti ca tion of drones and unarmed aerial vehi cles, sat el lites... more Despite the inven tion and sophis ti ca tion of drones and unarmed aerial vehi cles, sat el lites, and more recently, cyber espi o nage, "spy pigeons" remain a serious threat at the India-Pakistan bor der. The entan gle ment between y ing pigeons for "sport" and cap tur ing pigeons for "espi o nage" is crit i cal to con strue mul ti ple mean ings of more-than-human bor der intru sion in South Asia. Such an incur sion not only endan gers long-stand ing val ues of human-pigeon com pan ion ship but also moots a per plex ity of intru sion that lies between the eth i cal accep tance of the morethan-human intrud ers and nec es sary resis tance to their hos tile in l tra tion. Explored through the geo po lit i cally com plex expe ri ences of intru sion that have shaped the India-Pakistan rela tion ship since Partition, intrud ing spy pigeons pro vide a crit i cal per spec tive on dis trust, ani mos ity, and espi o nage in South Asia. KEYWORDS pigeon espi o nage, spy ani mals, mul ti spe cies anthro pol ogy, bor der intru sion, South Asia
Mutualisms: An introduction to this issue
Anthropology Today, Feb 1, 2023
As we grapple with climate change and myriad ecological crises, conceptual tools from other disci... more As we grapple with climate change and myriad ecological crises, conceptual tools from other disciplines offer opportunities for new analytical frameworks. In this issue, we bring a multispecies anthropological approach into dialogue with biological understandings of the relationships involved in domestication. We examine mutualism as a series of interspecies social interactions that, despite some costs, benefit each partner species on balance.
Donkey trade: Challenges to sustaining mutualism in rural Pakistan
Anthropology Today
The Pakistani government's decision to export thousands of donkeys to China to manufactur... more The Pakistani government's decision to export thousands of donkeys to China to manufacture Chinese traditional medicine (ejiao) threatens the interdependence between donkeys and their keepers. This article seeks to unravel the mutualism between humans and donkeys in rural South Punjab and examines how forces of globalism and capitalism commodify the equine through parasitic disregard.
OXFORD DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, 2023
Commercialization of agriculture in patriarchal rural Pakistan has transformed women’s critical r... more Commercialization of agriculture in patriarchal rural Pakistan has transformed women’s critical roles in pulses production and has re-organised
the gendered division of labour in what used to be widely known as
a ‘women’s crop’. Pulses are grown in the marginal and arid lands by
small-holder farming families where women care for the crops as an
extension of their other caring roles for the households. Based on
an ethnographic study of women pulse farmers in Pakistan, this paper examines the complex relations of women with the crop and the challenges
they face. It argues that the restoration of a caring relationship between
women and the pulses crop through a re-animation of multispecies contact
zones may be a way to ensure everyday food provisioning in rural
Punjab, maintain traditional socio-cultural and ecological relationships,
understand the masculinity that has pushed women to the margins, and
value women’s contribution, experience, and knowledge in agriculture.
Anthropology Today, 2023
The Pakistani government's decision to export thousands of donkeys to China to manufacture Chines... more The Pakistani government's decision to export thousands of donkeys to China to manufacture Chinese traditional medicine (ejiao) threatens the interdependence between donkeys and their keepers. This article seeks to unravel the mutualism between humans and donkeys in rural South Punjab and examines how forces of globalism and capitalism commodify the equine through parasitic disregard.
Anthropology Today, 2023
In the sub-Saharan African forests, a rather non-descript little
bird shares an intriguing mutual... more In the sub-Saharan African forests, a rather non-descript little
bird shares an intriguing mutualistic foraging relationship
with humans. Two species of the greater honeyguide have
led people to honeybee colonies for thousands of years. In a
communicative exchange, the hunters attract the honeyguide
through specific whistles and calls. Moving from branch
to branch with whistles, flapping of wings and fanning of
tail feathers, the bird then guides the hunters to a hive. The
hunters break open the hive and take the honey, while the
honeyguide benefits from the larvae and waxy honeycombs
the small bird could not otherwise access.
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2017
View related articles View Crossmark data order to reckon with reflexive material and semiotic en... more View related articles View Crossmark data order to reckon with reflexive material and semiotic entanglements that produce media on an ongoing basis.
The Senses and Society, 2021
How can care and cruelty, intimacy and indifference, passion and
combat, and attachment and detac... more How can care and cruelty, intimacy and indifference, passion and
combat, and attachment and detachment coexist in interspecies
relations? How can we develop a deeper understanding of morethan-
human relatedness through the study of this nexus?
Specifically, how can an understanding of cockfighting as an
expression of intimacy lead us to redefine crucial cultural themes
such as “masculinity” and “honor” in a rural Pakistani setting? Based
on yearlong ethnographic fieldwork in rural South Punjab, this
paper argues that in order to understand the multiple modalities
of human-rooster relationship, our analysis should delve beneath
the visual spectacle and engage with local ways of sensing and
understandings of the practice. It contends that a multisensory
analysis of cockfighting that focuses on the interplay of different
senses – including the sound of roosters, the smell of their bodies,
their preference in taste, texture of their plumage and muscles, and
the sight of their fight – can help critique and refigure Clifford
Geertz’s interpretation of cockfighting as a “cultural text.”
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2021
The construct of multispecies anthropology has helped
explain some of the ways through which huma... more The construct of multispecies anthropology has helped
explain some of the ways through which humans develop
sensory and embodied connectedness with the more-than-human.
Yet there is a need to fully comprehend how such
connectedness leads to the discovery of the inner self.
Through an ethnographic study carried out with rural South
Punjabi pigeon flyers in Pakistan between 2008 and 2018,
this paper argues that companionship with pigeons allows
people to generate a meaningful relationship with their animals,
explore their inner emotions and achieve a deeper understanding
of the self. This paper takes inspiration from
Donna Haraway's critique of Jacques Derrida's cat encounter,
and philosophical thoughts of a 12th-century Muslim
mystic poet, Farid ud-Din Attar, to examine how becoming with
pigeons enables the flyers to structure their lifeworlds,
develop entrenched companionship and shape their social
choices to achieve wellbeing despite everyday social troubles
and emotional anxieties.
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Books by Muhammad A Kavesh
Papers by Muhammad A Kavesh
to embrace a multisensory perspective, opening new possibilities
for detecting and understanding the subtleties of
interspecies connectedness. The body, transcending any single
sense, reveals its multisensorial potentialities: touch evokes emotions,
sight inspires visions, hearing deepens into attentive listening,
taste fosters companionship, and smell rekindles memories.
Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s views on the body
and my ethnographic work with pigeons and donkeys in Pakistan,
this article contends that a bodily oriented, sense-based approach
has the potential to generate new forms of knowledge and reimagine
relationships that transcend species boundaries.
the gendered division of labour in what used to be widely known as
a ‘women’s crop’. Pulses are grown in the marginal and arid lands by
small-holder farming families where women care for the crops as an
extension of their other caring roles for the households. Based on
an ethnographic study of women pulse farmers in Pakistan, this paper examines the complex relations of women with the crop and the challenges
they face. It argues that the restoration of a caring relationship between
women and the pulses crop through a re-animation of multispecies contact
zones may be a way to ensure everyday food provisioning in rural
Punjab, maintain traditional socio-cultural and ecological relationships,
understand the masculinity that has pushed women to the margins, and
value women’s contribution, experience, and knowledge in agriculture.
bird shares an intriguing mutualistic foraging relationship
with humans. Two species of the greater honeyguide have
led people to honeybee colonies for thousands of years. In a
communicative exchange, the hunters attract the honeyguide
through specific whistles and calls. Moving from branch
to branch with whistles, flapping of wings and fanning of
tail feathers, the bird then guides the hunters to a hive. The
hunters break open the hive and take the honey, while the
honeyguide benefits from the larvae and waxy honeycombs
the small bird could not otherwise access.
combat, and attachment and detachment coexist in interspecies
relations? How can we develop a deeper understanding of morethan-
human relatedness through the study of this nexus?
Specifically, how can an understanding of cockfighting as an
expression of intimacy lead us to redefine crucial cultural themes
such as “masculinity” and “honor” in a rural Pakistani setting? Based
on yearlong ethnographic fieldwork in rural South Punjab, this
paper argues that in order to understand the multiple modalities
of human-rooster relationship, our analysis should delve beneath
the visual spectacle and engage with local ways of sensing and
understandings of the practice. It contends that a multisensory
analysis of cockfighting that focuses on the interplay of different
senses – including the sound of roosters, the smell of their bodies,
their preference in taste, texture of their plumage and muscles, and
the sight of their fight – can help critique and refigure Clifford
Geertz’s interpretation of cockfighting as a “cultural text.”
explain some of the ways through which humans develop
sensory and embodied connectedness with the more-than-human.
Yet there is a need to fully comprehend how such
connectedness leads to the discovery of the inner self.
Through an ethnographic study carried out with rural South
Punjabi pigeon flyers in Pakistan between 2008 and 2018,
this paper argues that companionship with pigeons allows
people to generate a meaningful relationship with their animals,
explore their inner emotions and achieve a deeper understanding
of the self. This paper takes inspiration from
Donna Haraway's critique of Jacques Derrida's cat encounter,
and philosophical thoughts of a 12th-century Muslim
mystic poet, Farid ud-Din Attar, to examine how becoming with
pigeons enables the flyers to structure their lifeworlds,
develop entrenched companionship and shape their social
choices to achieve wellbeing despite everyday social troubles
and emotional anxieties.