The University of Cape Town hosted the project during the outgoing phase, 2022 and 2023. This stimulating intellectual realm gave theoretical insights into existing debates on the local/global in anthropology allowing for a comparative focus on different notions of ‘globality’. My integration at the host institution was possible through access to lectures, seminars, workshops, online events, and conferences. Further networking was made through weekly writing and reading sessions, which included students, staff, and affiliates. I taught a course in multimodal methods with a multispecies focus for Master's and Ph.D. students. I shared my work at an open seminar at the end of 2023.
The fieldwork during this phase involved gathering detailed data with special attention to the experiences of people in sites of wool production. This work was carried out in South Africa, Australia, Patagonia, and at the International Wool Textile Organisation IWTO in Brussels. A good rapport was upheld through longer and returning stays at the farms where farmers had expressed an interest in maintaining a dialogue, always with informed consent as a precondition. The work involved walks on the fields with the farmers, conversations, and more formal interviews, observing sheep and their relations in the surroundings, and attending activities, such as shearing, caring, moving herds across the lands, fencing, securing the rangelands predators, parasite management, sales, and auctions. Interviews with key figures in the wool industry and laboratory technicians or administrators were conducted to broaden the insights. The work led to about 60 hours of footage and 30 interviews, 15 deep interviews, and informal conversations. In Patagonia, where contacts had already been established during previous fieldwork, my return visits proved fruitful for deepening the collaborative work. The work included conversations about the other sites, their view on ‘globality’, and when possible the watching of footage from farms in the other sites.
