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Institute of Advanced Study
External shot of Institute of Advanced study at Cosin's Hall

Interest in cattle: value, risk and security in eastern and southern Africa - Project Launch and Workshop

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24 June 2025 - 24 June 2025

12:00PM - 4:00PM

Seminar Room, Institute of Advanced Study, Cosin's Hall, Palace Green

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This is the fourth and launch event of the IAS major project 'Interest in cattle: value, risk and security in eastern and southern Africa'

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Image courtesy of iStock

This project, which will run up to Easter 2026, with Fellows resident in Durham from January to March 2026, takes an innovative approach to questions of value and well-being in eastern and southern Africa. It will bring together scholars from diverse disciplines - from public health to history and anthropology, all of whom share an interest in cattle.

Launch workshop for IAS major project 

Cattle lie at the intersection of multiple, distributed, strategies for securing the future. They are an everyday resource in livelihood strategies; a target of bio-security interventions informed by contemporary One Health approaches; a way to build and reaffirm horizontal social ties; an investment opportunity for those who seek to accumulate – and they are the centre of an enduring aesthetic which valorises them as things of beauty as well as cultural and economic resources. 


This workshop will launch the IAS major project on this topic, initiating a cross-disciplinary debate around these intersecting forms of interest in cattle that we will pursue in the coming months.

 

12.00- 12.30  

Why are we interested in cattle? 
Short talks from the six investigators on the project
12.30-13.30 Lunch and informal discussion
13.30 -14.45   

Images of interest

Participants in the workshop are invited to share one image and to talk briefly about what it tells us about interest in cattle
14.45-15.30

Small group discussions around four themes, identifying key questions for the project:

  • Cattle livelihoods across scale
  • Risk and risk management
  • Valuing cattle
  • Cattle infrastructures
  •  
15.30-16.00 Questions of interest 
Plenary discussion, drawing on small groups, to refine the key questions for the project.

For more information please contact Professor Justin Willis at justin.willis@durham.ac.uk. 

Pricing

Free