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- Convenors:
-
Pieter Lagerwaard
(University of Amsterdam)
Liron Shani (Hebrew University)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
This panel explores the challenges for weaving the nonhuman into research on the Anthropocene. It studies the methodological and theoretical (im)possibilities of including nonhumans in practice, inviting contributions on multispecies methods, nonhuman intentionality, and interdisciplinary expertise.
Description
Increasingly, STS scholars are engaging with the "more-than human” in their research on multispecies and the Anthropocene, aiming to study how humans entangle with other life and engaging in human and non-human alliances. However, many of these attempts raise fundamental methodological, ethical, and conceptual concerns that are unconvincingly dealt with. This panel explores the (im)possibilities of including the non-human in the practice of doing research.
While more-than-human and multispecies approaches seek to correct social research’s historical neglect of non-human actors, including non-humans in social science research is easier said than done; not only because STS scholars are commonly trained in the social sciences instead of biology, ecology and zoology, but primarily because, in research practice, the human remains the main research tool that interprets the non-human.
Ultimately, more-than-human research promises a radical rethinking of the social but struggles to deliver either empirically or ethically (Tsing et al. 2019; Lowrey 2022). In practice, assuming symmetrical relations between humans and non-humans is difficult, if not impossible, to realize, with many studies claiming to “go beyond the human” while still relying on human experiences to interpret the non-human (Shani 2018; Vasantkumar 2022). Even when attempting to reintroduce politics and ethics into multispecies research (Chao 2020; Fúnez-Flores 2022), it remains unclear whether the ontological and epistemological vocabulary is up for the task.
This panel invites contributions that critically but productively engage with the notion of more-than-human – what does the “more” actually mean? Contributions could focus on conducting multispecies ethnographies in practice, especially in the worlds of environmental crises, agriculture, and the Anthropocene; on how we can (try) to understand the agency or intentionality of non-human actors; on how interdisciplinary research collaborations could be fostered to gather the expertise required; and on the ethics of claiming to speak (well) for other animals and plants.