https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n59.06
Tatiana Balbontín Beltrán
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba / Conicet, Argentina
Abstract:
This article reports an ethnographic survey on how a guanaco changed their behavior when they were moved from their “little house,” as their keepers called it. Transfers at the Zoo allowed me to observe behavioral changes and health effects, which highlighted the native notion of “little house,” referred to by their keepers. I about the course of life, the experience of guanaco Margarito’s transfer, and his “disturbed” behavior, as well as his “little house.” This is analyzed in the light of Tim Ingold’s notion of environment. As we will see, this notion can only be properly understood from an ontogenetic approach and with help of some theoretical tools from ecological psychology and von Uexküll’s biosemiotic approach. Specifically, I will take up the theoretical categories of affordance, from ecological psychology, and Umwelt, from biosemiotics, which together spotlight the importance of animals’ experiences throughout their life stories. Thus, we observe that “little house” is a native relational notion that account for keepers’ knowledge, but it also allows to analyze the behavior and the meaning produced by animals into their lives. The latter is central, since similar behavioral changes were observed in many animals when being transferred.
Keywords: Little house, zoo, animal-human, environment, animal transfers.
