Abstract
This article analyses the creole pig massacre in Hispaniola, particularly in Haiti, that happened between the end of 1970s and early 1980s. Drawing from both an ethnographic work and a historical analysis, I first focus on the trajectory of a disease that affected domestic pigs in the whole globe and generated a series of politics and scientific assemblages to contain its spread. From there, I analyze the cultural and political motivations and the techno-scientific means that gave rise to the massacre as well as the different theories about the disease. On the last part, I discuss the impacts of the massacre in peasants’ daily life, arguing that this event became, according to specialists, a ritual sacrifice that aimed at modernizing Haiti’s pigs raising systems. My argument here is that this event reveals concurrent visions of animals and domestication.
Keywords:
Caribbean; African Swine Fever (ASF); biopolitics; domestication