This essay explores the role of feral pigs in assembling the Texas frontier. Quick to reproduce, highly adaptive, and destroyers of agricultural fields, feral pigs have emerged over the past decade as one of the principal challenges facing agriculture and land management systems in Texas. Yet, more than simply a pest, feral pigs have and continue to be active agents in forging new landscapes, ecologies, and settler-colonial relations. We trace the history of the present pig “crisis” by exploring three paradigms for thinking pigs and the politics of ferality on the Texas frontier. These paradigms frame pigs as: “settler beasts” (companion species to settler expansion); “melting-pot beasts” (feral pigs as representing diverse genetic remnants of settler expansion); and “invader beasts” (feral pigs framed as a threat). Our argument is that these paradigms index diverse material and discursive ways that feral pigs have and continue to assemble Texas's frontier landscape.

中文翻译：

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定居者殖民野兽：德克萨斯州的野猪和边境组合

本文探讨了野猪在聚集德克萨斯州边境中的作用。野猪繁殖速度快、适应性强，是农田的破坏者，在过去十年中已成为德克萨斯州农业和土地管理系统面临的主要挑战之一。然而，野猪不仅仅是一种害虫，它已经并将继续成为创造新景观、生态和定居者与殖民关系的积极因素。我们通过探索思考猪的三种范式和德克萨斯州边境的野性政治来追溯当前猪“危机”的历史。这些范式将猪定义为：“定居者野兽”（定居者扩张的伴侣物种）；“熔炉野兽”（野猪代表定居者扩张的不同遗传残余）；和“入侵野兽”（被视为威胁的野猪）。我们的论点是，这些范式索引了野猪已经并将继续组装德克萨斯州边境景观的不同材料和话语方式。