Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among parents living in the affluent neighbourhoods of Ipanema, Brazil, and El Condado, Puerto Rico, I examine how urban Latin American elites deployed their parenting practices as moral justification for their racial and class privilege (what I call ‘sovereign parenting’). One way in which they do this is by producing particular forms of affective relationships with their nannies. The women these upper-class parents hired were largely dark-skinned immigrants: from the Dominican Republic, to work in El Condado, and from the Brazilian Northeast, to work in Ipanema. I demonstrate how elites cultivated a form of ‘informality’ and expressions of care in relation to childcare workers in ways that not only produced whiteness as a pillar of Latin American liberalism, but also associated whiteness with the world of interiority and personal growth.

Pigs have socio-economic and cultural importance to the livelihood of many Bhutanese rural communities. While there is evidence of increased religious disapproval of pig raising, the consumption of pork, which is mainly met from imports, is increasing every year. Pig development activities are mainly focused on introduction of exotic germplasm. There is an evidence of a slow but steady increase in the population of improved pigs in the country. On the other hand, indigenous pigs still comprise 68 percent of the total pig population but their numbers are rapidly declining. If this trend continues, indigenous pigs will become extinct within the next 10 years. Once lost, this important genetic resource is largely irreplaceable. Therefore, Government of Bhutan must make an effort to protect, promote and utilize indigenous pig resources in a sustainable manner. In addition to the current ex situ conservation programme based on cryopreservation of semen, which needs strengthening, in situ conservation and a nucleus farm is required to combat the enormous decline of the population of indigenous pigs and to ensure a sustainable source of swine genetic resources in the country.