Research: MuLTI-SPECIES ETHNOGRAPHY
Master Thesis in Anthropology, 2022
In between memory, affectivity and rural rites: how do animals die?
This thesis explores animal death as a key topic for the study of human-animal relations in the ethnographic context of Colares, Sintra. More precisely, the topic is approached from a methodological perspective called ‘multi-species ethnography’ that aims to integrate a multiplicity of more-than-human visions into the fieldwork and process of exploring the issue of animal death.
The first and theoretical part of the thesis approaches the question of animal death by deconstructing the dualism rooted within the ideas of what is human and animal, natural and cultural, domestic and wild through the lens of three key themes: affection, memory and ritual. The thesis poses the questions: how do humans learn to handle the death of an animal and what knowledge can be extrapolated from that instance to the human encounter with their own death?
The second part of the thesis is an ethnographic description of local practices and terminologies regarding the animal death while introducing the main informants of the research – the animals which cohabit with humans within the rural forest area that stretches out in between the villages of Colares Velho and Penedo. Through the perspective of these animals, we gain hands-on knowledge regarding the ways in which an animal’s death crosses with our own, human, ways of life and death.
Furthermore, in a community intervention perspective of a more public anthropology, the described encounters with animals and their death in the field may indicate new ways of how (rural) communities could be constructed from a multi-species point of view that stresses cohabitation over domination.
In between memory, affectivity and rural rites: how do animals die?
This thesis explores animal death as a key topic for the study of human-animal relations in the ethnographic context of Colares, Sintra. More precisely, the topic is approached from a methodological perspective called ‘multi-species ethnography’ that aims to integrate a multiplicity of more-than-human visions into the fieldwork and process of exploring the issue of animal death.
The first and theoretical part of the thesis approaches the question of animal death by deconstructing the dualism rooted within the ideas of what is human and animal, natural and cultural, domestic and wild through the lens of three key themes: affection, memory and ritual. The thesis poses the questions: how do humans learn to handle the death of an animal and what knowledge can be extrapolated from that instance to the human encounter with their own death?
The second part of the thesis is an ethnographic description of local practices and terminologies regarding the animal death while introducing the main informants of the research – the animals which cohabit with humans within the rural forest area that stretches out in between the villages of Colares Velho and Penedo. Through the perspective of these animals, we gain hands-on knowledge regarding the ways in which an animal’s death crosses with our own, human, ways of life and death.
Furthermore, in a community intervention perspective of a more public anthropology, the described encounters with animals and their death in the field may indicate new ways of how (rural) communities could be constructed from a multi-species point of view that stresses cohabitation over domination.
EthnograPhic ColLage Art
The thesis’ written narrative is combined with a parallel visual narrative that illustrates the key topics and histories collected within the scope of the research from a more abstract and artistic perspective.
In between Worlds, 2021
Photograph: Lee Scott / Unsplash
