Multi-species ethnography: methodological training in the field in South Africa

Abstract

PurposeTo further develop research methodologies for multi-species ethnographic fieldwork, based on researcher's experiences with multi-species fieldwork in private wildlife conservancies in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.Design/methodology/approachReflections on methodological lessons learnt during multi-species ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa. The approach is rather “Maanenesque” in telling various types of tales of the field. These tales also implicitly show how all-encompassing ethnographic fieldwork and its accompanying reflexivity are; there is never time for leisure in ethnographic fieldwork.FindingsThat developing fieldwork methodologies in multi-species ethnographic research confronts researchers with the explicit need for and training in multi-sensory methods and interpretations, inspired by “the art of tracking” of the San.Originality/valueComes up with a concrete suggestion for a sequence of research methods for multi-species ethnography based on the trials and tribulations of a multi-species ethnographer's experiences in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.

On ableism and anthropocentrism: A canine perspective on the workplace inclusion of disabled people

“…Interestingly, disabled employees themselves explained how they restricted the affect displayed towards their non-human companion in the workplace, and this is arguably informed by ableist discourses that equate disability to unprofessionalism (Jammaers et al, 2016) and masculine discourses privileging rationality and subordinating emotions, feeling and affect (Phillips, 2014), jointly shaping organizational realities. Future research should engage in research methods, better suited in carving out the affective dimension of in/exclusion of dog–human pairs in the context of work, such as (multi-species) ethnography (Hamilton and Taylor, 2017; Wels, 2020).…”

“…interviews), visual methods (e.g. photography-based drawings) are essential in making their workplace contributions visible and representing the materiality of their bodies, contributing to the subject-hood of animals (Taylor and Fraser, 2019; Wels, 2020). Although this study remains methodologically humanist as it is written by people who assert the power to speak for animals, it does make an attempt to understand how both co-constitute the world, refusing to ignore animals and using ‘humanity to tell stories about and for them’ (Hamilton and Taylor, 2017: 176).…”

“I prefer working with mares, like women, difficult in character but go the extra mile”: A study of multiple inequalities in equine (sports) business

“…The empirical method of qualitative, semistructured interviews was chosen as it allowed for a fairly quick understanding of how humans, professionally active in this business, assessed the equality of their field. It is important to acknowledge up front the shortcomings of such a choice, as it remains a human‐centered method prioritizing human experiences (Dashper & Brymer, 2019; Monterrubio & Pérez, 2021) and failing to fully include nonhuman animals as sentient social actors in the research design (Wels, 2020).…”

Sensory ethnography: a creative turn

“…The highly innovative work done in multi-species ethnography (Wels, 2012(Wels, , 2013(Wels, , 2015(Wels, , 2018(Wels, , 2020 encourages ethnographers to both think and be explicitly trained in "multi-sensory methods and interpretations" (Wels, 2020, p. 343), inspired by indigenous animal tracking and following. Wels cogently reflects on the sensibility of sensory ethnography: I increasingly went for words only, the easiest ethnographic data we can get in our over-saturated text-world of social and other media; that I treated the sensory and physical aspects of fieldwork far less systematic and consistent ways than words; that I had lost touch with the sentient nature of our sense making (2020, p. 359).…”