Interrelated agencies in an animal-centred organisation: the case of hunting with hounds

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on animal-centred organisations that operate based on the interrelationship between human and animal agencies. The empirical part develops an original case – hunting with hounds in France – that goes beyond hunting: It is also a performance that takes place outdoors in public woodlands and has organisational support. Our results show that: (1) the animal’s contribution to the organisation is based not on its resistance but on the uncertainty resulting from the interrelationship between human and animal agencies; (2) animal agency is neither simply a material agency that would compare animals to passive objects nor equivalent to human agency but an agency that the human confers on the animal in various ways depending on the type of animal (deer, dogs, horse) and its role in the organisation; (3) organisational settings, not species, define animal agency and, more specifically, animals’ ways of contributing to uncertainty in the organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• animals
• ethnography
• hunting
• animal centred organisation
• uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is subject to great debate, and Ingold (1988) provides an overview of the divergences between researchers on the issue. From his point of view, humans, like other animals, communicate by means of an extensive repertoire of non-verbal signs. However, because it lacks language, an animal cannot communicate its thoughts, at least to a human participant observer, even if it thinks things out in advance.