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Accepted Paper:
Ethical and Methodological Considerations for Conducting Multispecies Ethnography
Elan Abrell
(Wesleyan University)
This paper argues that an ethical approach to animal-involved ethnography requires treating animals, like humans, as co-participants in the research. To help guide this approach, it proposes a framework of questions and key values for research in an array of different settings and contexts.
Paper Abstract:
Focused specifically on ethnography that involves nonhuman animals, this paper argues that an ethical approach to such research requires treating animals, like humans, as co-participants in the production of knowledge, while contrasting this approach to ones in which animals have instead been the objects of research. To help guide this approach, it proposes a framework of key research values - including trust, empathy, humility, and an awareness of anthropocentric bias. Further, it explores how these values can be mobilized in an array of different settings and contexts for human-animal encounters, such as wilderness sites, sites of captivity, and sites where animals are subjected to violence. It concludes with a consideration of ethnography's potential as a vehicle for advocacy on behalf of its participants, especially as it could apply to nonhuman animals.