A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology

Fijn, Natasha; Kavesh, Muhammad A.

doi:10.1111/taja.12379

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…How do the Shuar modify and mix the plants to treat Covid-19, and, in turn, how does this mixture affect the former? These open-ended questions both puzzle and illuminate the broad spectrum of multispecies studies, which seek to immerse into the multi-sensory worlds of humans and non-humans' entanglements ( Fijn & Kavesh, 2021 ; Ogden et al, 2013 ; van Dooren et al, 2016 ). Therefore, whether we attempt to complement ethnographic methods with natural sciences tools such as analysing Pacific salmon scales and otoliths ( Swanson, 2017 ) or the phytochemical components of Amazonian shamanic plants ( Daly & Shepard, 2019 ); all of these cross-disciplinary inquiries share the same common ground of corporeal immersion with the recent phenomenological approaches in multispecies ethnography like investigating the complex relationships between humans and elephants in a Cambodian sanctuary ( Erickson, 2017 ) or humans and pigeons in rural Pakistan ( Kavesh, 2021 ).…”

Section: Obfuscated Multispecies Assemblagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ethnographic Quest in the Midst of COVID-19

Espinoza

2022

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has threatened ethnographic inquiry, undermining its quintessential characteristic. Participant observation, then, has been thoroughly dismembered by the radical measures implemented to prevent the spread of the virus. This phenomenon, in short, has dragged anthropologists to a liminal state within which ethnography is paradoxically caught in an onto-epistemological unstable vortex. The question of being here and not there, during the pandemic, is epitomised in the instability of different spatio-temporal contexts that overlap through technological mediations. Reflecting on previous fieldwork experiences and current virtual inquiries with the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon unfolds how COVID-19 has thoroughly reshaped how the author approaches subjects' socio-ecological settings. Against this background, the article argues that corporeal immersion remains a necessary condition for the anthropological scrutiny of multispecies relationalities amidst the challenging times of the Anthropocene. The article nevertheless demonstrates that the intellectual efforts to grasp the different material temporalities of virtual spaces embrace the ethical principles concerning the renunciation of fieldwork with vulnerable communities. Furthermore, a reflective and speculative stance is proposed to actualise the snapshots of faraway physicalities linking them to past embodied and multi-sensory experiences. It is ultimately theorised how these mnemonic devices operate as creative forms of inquiry that overcome the pandemic consequences, extra-stimulating our cognitive capabilities to reflect on prior and possible socio-material interactions.

show abstract

Section: Obfuscated Multispecies Assemblagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ethnographic Quest in the Midst of COVID-19

Espinoza

2022

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The problem of possession of power is not uniquely human yet the problem of colonization is arguably uniquely human in the sense of some humans dispossessing and robbing other humans, in what the Shona people call kupamba (to colonize). While some contemporary scholars postulate symmetrical anthropology, which dispenses with binaries between humans and non-humans, and puts all entities, be they human or nonhuman, on the same ontological plane (Fijn & Kavesh, 2021; Harman, 2009; Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010; Kubes & Reinhardt, 2022; Latour, 1993, 2005), the import of such symmetrical anthropology on discourses about coloniality and decoloniality has not been teased out. Of course, different entities whether human or nonhuman have got hierarchies, power, and dominance over others but then the question is whether such nonhuman hierarchies, power, and dominance should similarly be theorized as coloniality in the sense in which some decolonial scholars have tended to define coloniality in terms of hierarchies, domination, and power (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, 2016; Quijano, 2000; Restrepo, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chisi Chako Masimba Mashoma/Kunzi Pakata Sandi Kunzi Ridza: Anthropological Musings on the Coloniality of Dispossession in Africa

Nhemachena

2023

Journal of Black Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Africans need to be careful with discourses on coloniality that avoid dealing with central aberrations of colonialism. Focusing on coloniality of power, coloniality of being, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of gender, contemporary discourses on coloniality sidestepped a central aspect of colonialism. Motivated not by quests to merely exercise power, as is assumed in coloniality of power; and motivated not merely by quests to dominate Africans using knowledge, as is assumed in coloniality of knowledge; and motivated not ultimately by the quest for gender domination, as is assumed in the coloniality of gender, colonialists dispossessed colonized people. Reviewing literature and using the Shona (a people of Zimbabwe) proverbs chisi chako masimba mashoma/kunzi pakata sandi kunzi ridza (one should not exercise power over what one does not own/possession is not synonymous with ownership), this paper postulates the notion of coloniality of dispossession. The paper concludes that power is merely a tool to dispossess colonized people, and so decolonial scholarship must focus not only on tools used to colonize other people but on the ultimate goals of using tools, such as power.

show abstract

“…Firstly, I discuss some tentative links between selected literature on sacrifice, animal economies, human–animal intimacy and multispecies ethnography. My concern here is to think through, in a regionally specific way, how an emerging multispecies anthropology can help integrate ‘the more‐than‐human in understanding social, ecological, and political processes’ (Fijn and Kavesh, 2020, this issue).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%