Date: 12-15 December 2016

Contemporary anthropology is no longer preoccupied with the study of ‘man’ or the ‘culture’ of humans. The various turns meant the discipline is exceedingly exploring novel ways through which humans animate and experience their lives through objects, technologies, infrastructure, plants, and non-human animals. In this paper, I discuss the passions and pleasures of Pakistani pigeon flyers who cultivate their self around their cherished birds. In elaborating the interspecies intimacy, I explore the passion of Punjabi men for their pigeons and the way they delve into emotional experiments and sensual experiences through everyday engagements with their birds. I argue that the critical investigation of everyday relatedness (and most importantly, our relatedness with animals) is a crucial point of investigation, which not only helps in building a relationship with interlocutors but also paves the way for documenting emic experiences of the self.