Sociologies (Mar 2016)
Une sociologie avec les animaux : faut-il changer de sociologie pour étudier les relations humains/animaux ?
Abstract
The first objective of this paper is to depict a panorama of the French-speaking research which integrates animals into sociological analysis. Our aim is then to display the spectrum covered by such an ambition, and to identify different ways to articulate “sociology” and “animality” (“sociology of animals”, “sociology through animals”, “sociology for animals”). We argue for the interest and the originality of a sociology with animals, that implies to pay particular attention to the relations (instead of focusing only on the terms of relations): rather than a metaphysical interrogation on what caracterizes humans (and correlatively, on what humanities should be), and what caracterizes animals, this approach consists in paying attention to the anthrozoological relationships as they are observable and analyzable through different levels. For some, this ambition sometimes requires a number of epistemological shifts. Above all, the authors claim that this approach makes new objects and relatively unexplored fields available for sociological research.
