Un(Knowing) Animals: Critical Anthropomorphism in theory, method and practice.

The last decade has seen a flourishing of interest in the minded experiences of other creatures. This is visible in popular documentaries, new forms of dog training, new social movements and new legal and political agendas. How is such knowledge produced, what is its history and philosophy, how is it circulated, and how does it affect our relationship with nonhuman animals: intimately, ontologically and politically? In short, how do we know what we think we know about other animals?

Situated in the growing field of the sociology of Human-Animal Relations, (HAR), my PhD thesis argued that animal behaviour expertise is active in the world, enrolling many stakeholders. It is called upon to justify certain practices, it mobilises political movements, changes intimate relationships, produces moral categories and changes consumption habits. It may also be suppressed, denied, and contested. Notably, its experiments enrol real, live nonhuman individuals who contribute to the formation of knowledge.

Most professional knowledge about animals is produced under objectivist scientific frameworks. However, this Fellowship will explore the sociological significance of emerging forms of professional, "critically anthropomorphic" expertise. Critical anthropomorphism is an approach which permits qualitative, 'common-sense' interpretations of animals, whilst placing critical checks on those interpretations through certain techniques. This is an increasingly popular methodological idea in sociology (eg Irvine, 2004). However, in a unique contribution to the field, the publications arising from this Fellowship will explore the theoretical and methodological tensions inherent in critical anthropomorphism's actual practice. This is based on ethnographic investigation of a) an animal welfare methodology called Qualitative Behaviour Assessment, used here with laboratory mice and b) the teaching of horse behaviour in an "equine-assisted personal-development" site.
The publications will highlight how empathetic engagment and 'objective' detachment with animals are not opposing approaches, as is often assumed in the literature, but are often co-dependent. They will show how over-identification with animals can colonise their otherness, rather than respect them. They will problematise the discursive framing of horses as continually human-responsive 'prey-animals', and will demonstrate the methodological blind-spots in objectivist science towards the emotional and attentional states of observers. They will spark methodological debate, and disseminate useful new concepts.
This academic impact will be complemented by two other objectives, which will foster methodological innovation and public relevance.
Firstly, supported by Goldsmiths' Methods Lab, the project will develop and pilot a three-day interdisciplinary workshop in multi-species ethnography, involving observations of human-animal interactions. Using theatre exercises, sensory methods and video work, it will ask to what extent sociologists can know anything about the experiences of nonhuman animals in our research sites; or whether they remain out of reach. It will be interdisciplinary, collaborative, and reflective, combining approaches from an invited zoological expert with artistic and sociological methods; and will ask invited scholars and students to contribute their methodological reflections throughout. Reflections from a debrief will be publicised on my website www.unknowinganimals.com (under edit).
Secondly, the Fellowship will develop a short one-act play (15-30 mins), based on fieldwork vignettes, on the subject of "anthropomorphism". Produced through the Critical Ecologies research stream at Goldsmiths, this will engage members of the public in my research questions in an accessible way; and draw links between human-animal intimacies and wider social and political questions. A Goldsmiths arts student will help develop two simple animal puppets, and it will be filmed.