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Horse Trading: comparing human-equine networks of control and socio-environmental change in South African, India, Australia and the Americas
| Like the colonisers themselves, the colonial equine ‘invaders’ were the agents of enduring changes, both socially and environmentally. The imperial exchange meant a two-way transformation: in modifying the landscapes, the horse itself underwent a morphological transformation and its function within human society also altered significantly. War and trade are great diffusers of genotypes. The horse of the Dutch empire in southeast Asia – the Sumbawan, ‘Javanese’ or ‘oriental’ stock were transported to the Cape n southern Africa; the stock spread into Basutoland, and horses from both Basutoland and the Cape were relocated to Australia and India within the Imperial network. Imperial and later colonial concerns also had unintended effects on trends in demography and disease – both animal and human – and they influenced the way people conceived of horses. This paper provides a big picture, discussing the environmental and social effects both of and on these colonial equids.
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