TOWARD AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF ANIMAL WORLDS

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.

Keywords:

• ethology
• ethnography
• etho-eth- nography
• cultural zoology

Notes

Translated from Dominique Lestel, Les Origines animales de la culture [2001] (Paris: Flammarion, 2003). © Editions Flammarion, Paris, 2001 and 2003.