Livestock, Colonialism, and Commodity Frontiers in the U.S. Southwest

Abstract

Commodity frontiers are a useful way to think about the expansion and rearticulation of capitalist modes of production across the globe. A weakness of this approach is to miss deeper histories of colonialism and domination at the sites of the metaphorical frontier. This commentary thinks through Diné relationship with sheep to think through how livestock often contains older relationships that transcend colonial limitations.