About Beavers
“Exploring ways of bringing other species (and intellectual modes) back into anthropology, multispecies ethnographers have found inspiration in the work of scholars who helped found the discipline. Studies of animals have a long lineage in anthropology, traveling back canonically to texts such as Lewis Henry Morgan’s 1868 The American Beaver and His Works. Here, Morgan studied the “acquired knowledge” of lodge, dam, and canal building transmitted among beavers. Drawing parallels between the engineering knowledge of people and of beavers, one among many species of what he thought of as clever animal “mutes,” Morgan articulated an argument for animal rights: “The present attitude of man toward the mutes is not such, in all respects, as befits his superior wisdom. We deny them all rights, and ravage their ranks with wanton and unmerciful cruelty” (1868:281–282; and see Feeley-Harnik 2001). In the late 19th century, at a moment when anthropology was a field of natural history, scholars like Morgan worked across boundaries later secured against traffic between the social and natural sciences.” - [[kirkseyEMERGENCEMULTISPECIESETHNOGRAPHY2010|(Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010|[Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010)]]]]
“As people try to understand and engage with the ‘Other’, they develop a cooperative relationship based on shared corporeal histories and life experiences” [[fijnSensoryApproachMultispecies2021|(Fijn and Kavesh, 2021, p. 13|[Fijn and Kavesh, 2021, p. 13)]]]]
“The beavers are perhaps the only remaining example, the last monument to that animal intelligence…” - [[bergerLooking2015|(John Berger, 2015|[John Berger, 2015))]])]]
See also
Bibliography
Fijn, N., & Kavesh, M. A. (2021). A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 32(S1), 6–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12379 Kirksey, S. E., & Helmreich, S. (2010). THE EMERGENCE OF MULTISPECIES ETHNOGRAPHY. Cultural Anthropology, 25(4), 545–576. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2010.01069.x