Paper short abstract:

The paper seeks to bring into focus how caring can be understood as a relational achievement of both humans and other living beings based on processes of negotiation.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I will consider the notion of 'care' and 'wellbeing' for an anthropology that seeks to move our analysis beyond the human to include other living beings as active participants in shared worlds. The paper seeks to bring into focus how caring can be understood as a relational achievement of both humans and other living beings based on processes of negotiation. I will explore this negotiation of care-fullness in relation to ethnographic fieldwork material on falconry and the domestic breeding of birds of prey, particularly the relationship between breeders and so called imprinted birds of prey used in artificial insemination. The paper will explore care in terms of 'trans-species' work, emphasising the bodily and intimate involvement necessary to keep up relationships over time, that maintain wellbeing and health both of birds and humans involved. Caring in the domestic breeding complex is a practice that involves negotiation of power relationships beyond ideas of purely human dominance and mastery and invites to open up ideas of ethical conduct to encompass the active participation of other-than-human living beings.