Knowing Animals: Multispecies Ethnography and the Scope of Anthropology

Abstract

Multispecies ethnographic projects are venturing “beyond the human” (Kohn 2013), but how far can they go and remain anthropological? The answer depends on whether such projects align with the surge of ethological research on animal cultures. Based on my fieldwork on wild horses in Galicia, Spain, I make a case for an ethologically informed ethnography that extends cultural analysis to other social species. In this project, I used ethological techniques of direct observation but analyzed the results using Erving Goffman's concepts of face, footing, and civil inattention. My analysis inverts Clifford Geertz's classic study of the Balinese cockfight by making horse sociality the center of analysis, rather than regarding these animals as representations of human status concerns. I argue that this approach can be usefully applied across the range of taxa that evince culture, particularly those caught up in conservation efforts. In developing this claim, I draw on ethnoprimatologists’ efforts to synthesize multispecies ethnography with ethological methods and perspectives. [multispecies ethnography, animal cultures, ethology]

Conceptualizing the multispecies triad: Toward a multispecies intersectionality

“…Humans relate to cattle differently when atop a horse. Horses interact with cattle in very different ways when carrying a human as they then negotiate space, or engage in civil inattention (by turning away their gaze, see Hartigan 2021) according to human‐initiated activities. Trained, and sometimes untrained, cowhorses also relate to humans differently when simultaneously engaging cattle, such as taking specific initiative beyond human instructions, in ways that they do not when cattle are not present.…”

Canine Ministries:Co‐Instrumentalityof Human and Dog in a Christian Ontology

“…Due to the enduring connection between humans and dogs, the human-canine relationship is an inviting destination for applying humanistic anthropology to multispecies social environments. Various scholars have argued that dogs and other animals possess personalities (Irvine 2004), emotions (Bekoff 2007), and even culture (Hartigan 2021). Musharbash (2017) presents a case that dogs acquire behavioral patterns specific to the culture of the people with whom they reside.…”

“…Musharbash (2017) presents a case that dogs acquire behavioral patterns specific to the culture of the people with whom they reside. Hartigan (2021) takes it a step further, suggesting that social animals have their own culture independent of human influence, which can be studied using ethnographic observational methods. For the present research, I account for canine individuality and subjecthood as an essential component of the teamwork in a canine ministry, although at this stage, I am primarily focused on the ministers' interpretations of that individuality within their religious frameworks.…”

Disentangling human nature: Anthropological reflections on evolution, zoonoses and ethnographic investigations

“…Those theoretical and methodological contributions emphasise that either the Trobrianders (Malinowski, 1922), the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard, 1940) or the Tsembaga (Rappaport, 2000(Rappaport, [1968) are nothing without the fabric of social relations established among humans and between humans and shells, cattle or pigs. Those phenomena are illuminating considering the latest anthropological and philosophical interests in multispecies entanglements (e.g., Kohn, 2007;Candea, 2010;Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010;Van Dooren, 2019;Kirksey, 2020;Daly, 2021;Hartigan, 2021;Arregui, 2023), not to mention the relational onto-epistemological underpinnings that arise from the analysis of ethnographic data (Viveiros de Castro, 1998;Bird-David, 1999;Ingold, 2006;Descola, 2013;Rose, 2013). So, why do relationships matter significantly in anthropological thinking?…”