Abstract
The convergence between ethology and ethnography has significantly transformed studies of animal subjectivity and culture. The future of both fields lies in a cultural zoology that treats animals as subjects partaking in culture. Nonetheless, significant resistance to such an approach exists on each side of the dis- ciplinary divide. Biologists and social scientists content themselves with definitions of culture that prevent them from taking heed of crucial dimensions of it. Beyond that, the very organiz- ation of scholarly knowledge in university disci- plines is predicated upon an absolute split between humans and other animals, with ethol- ogy charged with understanding non-human animal behavior and the social sciences directed almost exclusively to human cultures. The most promising approaches of the present and future rely on a mixture of methods and definitions that challenges and expands the disciplines involved as well as the very understanding of animal life.
Notes
Translated from Dominique Lestel, Les Origines animales de la culture [2001] (Paris: Flammarion, 2003). © Editions Flammarion, Paris, 2001 and 2003.