Line of life between macaques and the macaque caretakers: towards posthuman spaces of dwelling and becoming

Abstract

This article presents the story between macaque and Por the macaque caretaker from Chomporn province who trained his monkeys to harvest coconut for career over fifty years ago. When tourism boomed, Por travelled to Phuket to start “monkey show” for Chinese tourists, then journeyed to Mae Rim, Chiang Mai to set up his “Monkey training center”. From the perspective of posthuman geographies, this article focuses on the vitality and animality that materialized along the voyage from the South to the North, and from coconut plantations to performing stages. The macaque were not mere working animals for entertainment in nature tourism. Because of their uniqueness and ability that draw in other living things and stuffs into relations, Spaces of fluidity and becoming emerge. At the training center, a place where matter out of place were performed to attract tourists, reveals the becoming of show monkey and the becoming of monkey caretaker that were forged from learning each other’s body languages, making noises and making eyes, including perceiving the rope tension from pulling or twitching. Moreover, due to the act and show equipment, physiological and behavioral development of the macaques in Chiang Mai were significantly different from those in Chumporn. At the same time, the caretaker grew into entrepreneurship that constantly adapt to survive under the power of neoliberalism of nature.