Anthropology and Environment Society

Roundtable

Interspecies Methodologies in a “Changing” Climate: The Arts and Methods of an “Engaged” Posthuman Ethnography

Multispecies, Research/Research Methods, Violence

Organizer(s)

• HC

  Hilary Cunningham

  University of Toronto

Chair(s)

• HC

  Hilary Cunningham

  University of Toronto

Presenter(s)

• 

  Elan Abrell

  Assistant Adjunct Professor
  New York University
• BC

  Beth Cullen

  University of Westminster
• 

  Susan Falls

  Professor of Anthropology
  Savannah College of Art and Design
• CG

  Columba Gonzalez-Duarte
• PH

  Paul Hansen

  Hokkaido University
• RL

  Rachel Levine

  University of Toronto, Department of Anthropology
• LH

  Lindsay Hamilton

Abstract: Central to the emerging field of multispecies ethnography is a critique of humanism and the metaphysical privileging of the human in all aspects of knowledge production. Much has been written about the theoretical and representational difficulties of research with and within nonhuman-lifeworlds: thereby prompting calls for methodologies which not only challenge the logocentric conventions of traditional ethnography, but also go beyond merely including nonhumans in research. Yet nonhuman-lifeworlds are increasingly lived out in conditions of unprecedented exploitation and destruction, including the structural and ecological violence rendered by anthropogenic climate chaos. This suggests that posthuman ethnography has strong resonances with traditions of “engaged,” “activist” and “radical” research. Does posthuman ethnography, then, entail the adoption of an emancipatory politics for nonhuman lives? Should it? If so, how?

Utilizing examples drawn from their own interspecies research, presenters explore multispecies methods within the wider context of violence-toward-nonhumans.

Questions include:

What aspects of ethnographic methods, developed primarily within a modern, anthropocentric and colonizing framework, are “workable” in light of the history of violence against nonhumans? Are there particular methods which need to be jettisoned altogether?

What kinds of methods can generate genuinely ethical relationships between humans and nonhumans? Is advocacy for nonhuman welfare intrinsic or endemic to such methodologies?

There have been numerous calls within posthumanist research to “take animals seriously.” How does the context of exploitation and violence-toward-nonhumans engage with this challenge? How might adopting a politicized approach to nonhuman research impact our methodologies?