Date: 12–15 Dec 2016

Panel Coordinators: Muhammad Kavesh, Kathleen Varvaro, Natasha Fijn, Alexandra McEwan

Short abstract

This panel seeks to explore challenges within anthropology in a multi-faceted and increasing ethically complex more-than-human world. How do we engage with ‘multi-species ethnography’ within anthropology, or the ‘Anthropology of Life’? This panel session explores the scope and complexity of studying the dynamics of more-than-human sociality.

Long abstract

This panel session takes the Anthropocene as its backdrop in a more-than-human world. We are in the midst of a time of puzzling contradictions and rapid social change. Companion animals may be accepted members of the family, while in other circumstances animals are workers, objects of sport, or the manifestation of ancestral beings. Does anthropology possess the requisite methodological tools to understand interspecies social relations? What are the complexities of multispecies ethnographies, studies on the Anthropology of Life, more-than-human sociality, multispecies storytelling, and worldmaking?

We invite papers that delve into these entanglements, and offer opportunities to consider and debate the concepts and methods required to develop an Anthropology of Life. We welcome papers on aspects of contemporary human-animal engagements and relationships, examining the ethical and moral dimensions of our hybrid communities. The focus will be to facilitate discussion on the conceptual and methodological aspects of inter-disciplinary approaches in relation to more-than-human sociality.