Methods for Multispecies Anthropology: Thinking with Salmon Otoliths and Scales

TY - JOUR

T1 - Methods for Multispecies Anthropology: Thinking with Salmon Otoliths and Scales

AU - Swanson, Heather Anne

PY - 2017/6

Y1 - 2017/6

N2 - This article proposes that multispecies anthropology and its curiosities about non-humans constitute a ‘minor anthropology’ that poses challenges not only to anthropological categories, but also to anthropological methods. Through attention to Pacific salmon, I probe why and how anthropologists might explore the ways non-humans know and enact worlds via collaborations with natural scientists. Working with biologists, I examine salmon scales and otoliths, or ear bones, whose crystallization patterns act as a kind of fish diary, recording a fish’s migrations and relations. I take up these methods with an anthropological eye, asking how one might use such practices to learn about multispecies encounters that classical ethnography often misses. Lastly, I demonstrate how anthropologists can engage natural science tools while remaining alert to the politics of knowing.

AB - This article proposes that multispecies anthropology and its curiosities about non-humans constitute a ‘minor anthropology’ that poses challenges not only to anthropological categories, but also to anthropological methods. Through attention to Pacific salmon, I probe why and how anthropologists might explore the ways non-humans know and enact worlds via collaborations with natural scientists. Working with biologists, I examine salmon scales and otoliths, or ear bones, whose crystallization patterns act as a kind of fish diary, recording a fish’s migrations and relations. I take up these methods with an anthropological eye, asking how one might use such practices to learn about multispecies encounters that classical ethnography often misses. Lastly, I demonstrate how anthropologists can engage natural science tools while remaining alert to the politics of knowing.

KW - Animal studies

KW - Knowledge practices

KW - Minor anthropologies

KW - Multispecies ethnography

KW - STS

KW - Salmon

KW - Social science methods

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85019095054&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0155-977X

VL - 61

SP - 81

EP - 99

JO - Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology

JF - Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology

IS - 2

ER -