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Article ID: CBB008908465

The Camera and the Cattle: Bovine Photography and Technologies of "Improvement" in Colonial South India (October 2023)

Technology and Culture
Volume: 64
Issue: 4
Pages: 1045-1070

URI: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/910994

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2023.a910994

Publication Date: October 2023
Edition Details: Special Issue: Bovine Regimes: When Animals Become Technologies
Language: English

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Breeding Farms Agriculture Photography Animals Cattle Development of technology; change in technology 20th century, early 19th century British India (British Raj) British India (British Raj) India

Photography, also an innovative technology at the time, engaged with two interconnected bovine technologies in late nineteenth and early twentieth century India: cattle as the animal power behind other agrarian technologies and cattle breeding. The Ongole cattle of Nellore district in south India, ancestors of the internationally renowned zebu cattle, were famed for their beauty, their strength as haulage and tillage animals, and their milk yields. Along with other Indian breeds, they were systematically photographed, beginning with the 1865 Addanki cattle show. This article examines the role of bovine photography as an agent of technological change in relation to the transition from a local cattle-raising culture through provincial "improvement" schemes to a pantropical market for Ongoles. It reflects on the racial discourse of animal breeds and its intersection with colonial-era ideas of bovine "degeneration" and "improvement," while highlighting the importance of cattle fairs and experimental farms.

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Associated with

Article Tamar Novick (October 2023) Introducing Bovine Regimes: When Animals Become Technologies. Technology and Culture (pp. 1027-1043). unapi

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