A Dynamic Ontology of the Human-Animal Boundary: Towards a Non-Human Anthropology

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n59.02

Gerson Augusto Alfonso Sánchez
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia

Abstract:

This article examines a dynamic ontology of the human-animal boundary to rethink anthropology beyond human view and to outline the horizon of a non-human anthropology. We argue that rather than a pre-existing zoological frontier, this boundary is an archiving, flesh, and agency operation allocating differential modes of emergence, vulnerability, protection, and sacrificiality. Building upon Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Agamben, Deleuze, and Guattari, and entering into dialogue with a more-than human anthropology, Amerindian perspectivism, multispecies ethnography, and biosemiotics, we show how names, bodies, institutions, infrastructures, and relational practices bring about the stances known as “human” and “animal.” We conclude by formulating four methodological principles, namely, de-hierarchizing presence, carnal co-exposure, transversal agency, and a dual archival and flesh reading.

Keywords: Dynamic ontology, human-animal boundary, non-human anthropology, more-than-human anthropology, archive, flesh, agency.