Changing bodily practices in interspecies communities with dairy cows and white lions: methodological challenges in co-constructing meaning

Abstract

Research with cows, white lions, and other forms of interspecies fieldwork presents deep methodological challenges. Traditional, human-centered ethnography falls short in capturing how non-human interlocutors shape the conditions, possibilities, and dynamics of research. Drawing on two contrasting case studies – a dairy calf in the Netherlands and white lions in South Africa – we show that interspecies ethnography requires unlearning human-centered bodily habits, developing species-specific sensitivity, and recognizing the active role of animals in shaping the temporalities, spatialities, and sensory registers of research encounters. We argue that emotions, tactile engagement, and multimodal communication are not supplementary, but fundamental elements of knowledge-making in communities that involve both humans and animals. Our comparative analysis of prey and predator contexts highlights how species, power relations, and material infrastructures shape what counts as participation and understanding. We conclude that preparing students for multispecies research demands a rethinking of ethnographic training, placing slow, embodied, and affectively engaged learning with other-than-human beings at the center.