Homing new territories: Muskoxen, humans, and unruly dynamics in West Greenland, Greenland
Muskoxen have lived through geological epochs, and are seen, by some, as exotic ice age creatures. They have sustained human lives in different moments and places. From East Greenland, the end station for muskox migrations across the Arctic, individuals have, by human efforts, been translocated to new habitats, as early instances of wildlife conservation. Nowhere have translocated muskoxen thrived as well as they do in Kangerlussuaq, West Greenland. In the 1960s, 27 individuals were introduced to the area, and since their arrival, the population has grown to more than 20,000 individuals. Formerly strangers to this landscape and community, these muskoxen now underpin central activities in the local community and national economy: hunting for meat, wool production, and trophy hunting.
This presentation follows the population of muskoxen in Kangerlussuaq and explores the processes through which muskoxen have come to be what they are today. Mobilizing a concept with origins in zoology – homing – I establish an analytical space in which to understand muskox placemaking and becoming as a relational and multispecies practice. ‘Homing’, I suggest, dissolves the nature-culture divide and opens an analytical awareness to the processual and relational nature of multispecies placemaking. As muskoxen homed this landscape, different human interests emerged, resulting in new territories of resources and governance. Homing new territories, thus, refers to the multilayered and unexpected transformations that the muskoxen keep effectuating. It is a story of the unintended and unplanned consequences that come with the translocations of animals.