Re-thinking animal and human personhood: towards co-created narratives of affective, embodied, emplaced becomings of human and nonhuman life

Jones, O (2023) 'Re-thinking animal and human personhood: towards co-created narratives of affective, embodied, emplaced becomings of human and nonhuman life.' In: Colombino, A and Bruckner, H.K, eds. Methods in human-animal studies: engaging with animals through the social sciences. Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 63-84. ISBN 9781138497511

Abstract

This chapter argues that animal becoming and animal personhood are articulated in particular, affective, spatialised and embodied practices. These practices are differently materialised and socialised in the life narratives of individual animals, as well as sketched out in their instinctive species’ repertoires. Animals enact – animals are – affective spatial becomings. Thus geography, as the spatial science, has an intellectual, moral and political duty to reveal their lives. The chapter develops the excellent work already conducted within animal geography by stressing aspects of the affective, spatialised, embodied becomings of animals. To answer the still very challenging questions – how do we “hear animal voices” and “bring them into our accounts as others” – the author proposes paying very close attention to their embodied spatial narratives. Getting close to animals, and observing them attentively, can be done through scientific study, philosophy, literature, natural histories, artistic practice or paying close attention to the animals we live with. The chapter explores a series of themes: seeing animals as strange persons (who look back); the differences and continuities between humans and animals and re-thinking anthropomorphism; challenging ideas of “becoming animal”; questions of the open, ethics and welfare; and witnessing as a form of “knowing” animals.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Divisions:	School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2024 14:46
Last Modified:	17 Sep 2024 14:46
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16479

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