Teacher(s)
Language
French
Content
Nowadays, as environments and their human and non-human inhabitants transform, as each being is understood as a holobiont (an assemblage of species living together, according to A. Tsing’s definition), and as new relationships emerge between these components, the social sciences are developing new concepts. These assemblages and recompositions call for both empirical and reflective work. The abandonment of notions such as “societies” in favor of “collectives,” for example, opens up novel and fruitful readings. How, then, can we grasp what non-humans do to humans? This course addresses these fundamental questions.
Human relationships with animals and plants have been examined successively through the lenses of symbolic systems, ethnozoology/ethnobotany, ecology, and more recently inter- and intraspecific relations (competition within the same species). Influenced by biology, the notion of interspecific relations includes predation, competition, parasitism, commensalism, mutualism, and symbiosis. These concepts are adopted by so-called multispecies approaches, which explore the entanglements between human life and the living world as a whole (animals, microorganisms, etc.): see, for example, Multispecies Ethnography.
Through ethnographic studies and various authors, the course critically examines these perspectives and some key concepts they employ. Part of the course will focus on the Inuit, whose society is based on hunting, where predation and compensation are inseparable. The course will also open onto an anthropology of the vegetal and mineral worlds.
The course will be taught in a seminar format and is structured around five complementary themes:
Human relationships with animals and plants have been examined successively through the lenses of symbolic systems, ethnozoology/ethnobotany, ecology, and more recently inter- and intraspecific relations (competition within the same species). Influenced by biology, the notion of interspecific relations includes predation, competition, parasitism, commensalism, mutualism, and symbiosis. These concepts are adopted by so-called multispecies approaches, which explore the entanglements between human life and the living world as a whole (animals, microorganisms, etc.): see, for example, Multispecies Ethnography.
Through ethnographic studies and various authors, the course critically examines these perspectives and some key concepts they employ. Part of the course will focus on the Inuit, whose society is based on hunting, where predation and compensation are inseparable. The course will also open onto an anthropology of the vegetal and mineral worlds.
The course will be taught in a seminar format and is structured around five complementary themes:
- What is an animal? What is a plant? What is a species? What is the relevance of ethno-ethology, and what is anthropocentrism?
- How does humanization of animals and plants occur, and how does the animalization of humans happen? How do the categories of wild and domestic function, and what are the roles of monsters and hybrids?
- The problem of killing animals, hunting, and cannibalism; the question of distance or edibility of meat; the role of affects and interspecific conflicts in the Anthropocene.
- Examining animals and plants as signs, their capacity to anticipate, and their political and ritual uses in contemporary societies. The goal is to understand what plants and animals contribute to an anthropology that reunites nature and culture.
- The contributions and limitations of multispecies ethnography.
Teaching methods
Lectures, student oral presentations, and collective discussion of case studies. A seminar format will be prioritized.
Evaluation methods
A brief oral presentation (PPT presentation) that is not graded, except for students outside the program.
Working in pairs is allowed. Students are expected to actively participate in class; any absence must be justified, otherwise it will be penalized. The use of AI is permitted for research purposes, provided its role is clearly specified; failure to do so will result in a penalty. The writing itself must be the student’s own work.
Master 120 Jury Work in Anthropology
(The assessment of cross-cutting issues and anthropological perspectives in the common core is carried out through a single examination before a panel of professors. This involves presenting a project, supported by tutoring, that demonstrates the various learning outcomes of the common core courses. This assessment takes place in two stages: submission of an integrative assignment and an oral defense during the June and August sessions.) For more information, see: https://www.uclouvain.be/fr/facultes/espo/psad/le-jury
Working in pairs is allowed. Students are expected to actively participate in class; any absence must be justified, otherwise it will be penalized. The use of AI is permitted for research purposes, provided its role is clearly specified; failure to do so will result in a penalty. The writing itself must be the student’s own work.
Master 120 Jury Work in Anthropology
(The assessment of cross-cutting issues and anthropological perspectives in the common core is carried out through a single examination before a panel of professors. This involves presenting a project, supported by tutoring, that demonstrates the various learning outcomes of the common core courses. This assessment takes place in two stages: submission of an integrative assignment and an oral defense during the June and August sessions.) For more information, see: https://www.uclouvain.be/fr/facultes/espo/psad/le-jury
Bibliography
- Moodle
Teaching materials
- Moodle
Faculty or entity
