Relations. Beyond anthropocentrism (2020). Vol. 8/1-2: Finding agency in nonhumans

We humans are always close at hand to attribute agency to nonhumans, but as soon as we dig deeper, the notion of nonhuman agency becomes much messier. The essays collected in this special issue showcase new methodological approaches for addressing nonhuman agency in academic writing, theoretical reflections on nonhuman agency, and specific case studies of nonhuman agency. Our interdisciplinary journey through the fields of history, anthropology, and literature studies will take us to many new and unfamiliar places. We will travel with camels and herders into the deserts of Somaliland to find out who is leading whom. We will stand witness in a court of law, where the defendants, the dugongs of Okinawa, are not only not present but may not even exist. Our journey takes us also to the Lofoten Islands, where the landscape itself is transformed by the presence of the skrei fish (Norwegian codfish), despite our researcher not seeing a single living fish on her fieldwork. We will listen to a conversation between Eriko and Pepper in a Japanese nursing home to find that the boundaries between humans and robots are breaking down. The cruelty of animal experiments is explored not in a physical space but in the realm of literature, and finally, we will learn why it might be important to give agency even to bacteria in our case study about Lyme Disease in Scotland.