Think with the virus

Abstract

This essay proposes that analyses of the pandemic caused by Covid-19 can be clarified by reflections from the field of anthropology over recent decades regarding the plural effects of the interaction between human and non-human animals. These human–nonhuman relationships are intimate and unpredictable; between entities whose agency and modes of existence are not always precisely identifiable. Our contention is that ‘more than human’ perspective, as a relational marker, expresses a counterpoint defined by interspecific alterities that we humans establish with certain animal species. Furthermore, these relationships are configured as a ‘category-metaphor’ enabling us to perceive the multiple and complex ways in which we compose our lives in relation to the ‘nature’ of everything around us. We argue that events such as the appearance of SARS-CoV-2 have a reflective potential that can draw the attention of those who do Animal Studies to these relations. We highlight the limiting effects of a narrowly defined (‘absolutely animal’) disciplinary rhetoric, when instead we need to formulate meaningful responses to the consequences of our relationships with other beings. We address the valorization of relations between humans and non-humans in their vital contexts; that is, what is necessary and available to survive. They consider the access and utilization of available resources, and how they are unequal around the world. Our anthropological perspective asks what it means to simultaneously address issues of power and marginality in the face of capitalism and globalization, to consider humans and non-humans as companion species, and to take the benefits offered by anthropology learned from the lived world, without separating it from politics and history.