The boundary of animality

TIK Centre for technology, innovation and culture, University of Oslo, P.O. BOX 1108 Blindern 0317 OSLO Norway On­Line Papers – Copyright This online paper may be cited or briefly quoted in line with the usual academic conventions. You may also download them for your own personal use. This paper must not be published elsewhere (e.g. to mailing lists, bulletin boards etc.) without the author' s explicit permission.  Please note that if you copy this paper you must:  • include this copyright note  • not use the paper for commercial purposes or gain in any way  • you should observe the conventions of academic citation in a version of the following form: Lars Risan, "The Boundary of Animality", http://www.tik.uio.no/natureculture/papers/the_boundary_of_animalit y.pdf Publication Details  This web page was last revised on 28th May 2004. The Boundaryof Animality Lars Christian Risan Centre for technology, innovation and culture University of Oslo PO box 1108 Blindern N­0317 Oslo Norway E­mail: lars.risan@tik.uio.no   Draft To appear in  Environment & planning. D, Society and space 1 ABSTRACT: This paper explores some limits of the generalized symmetry of Actor­ Network Theory. It is based on a study on cows, farming technology and farming science, and is empirically based on an anthropological fieldwork   in   modern,   computerized   cow­sheds.   By   exploring differences in interactions between human beings and  cows on the one hand, and human beings and computers on the other, the paper argues that the partly common Natural History of human beings and cows, and the lack of such a history in human­computer interactions, makes it impossible to be agnostic about where to find subjectivity in such a place as a cow­shed. Animal bodies (including human beings) demand   certain   kinds   of   interactions,   and   thus   produce   certain distributions   of   subjectivities.   The   boundary   of   animality   is   not   a purely "cultural" distinction, and cannot be deconstructed as such. Introduction How do  cows,   humans  and  machines work  and  live together, in  a modern milk­ producing cow­shed to make up a collective of nature and culture, of machines and animals? What, in such a setting, is a cow? What is a cow, seen as a semiotic phenomenon, as a material phenomenon, as part of a technoscientific collective and as agent and object in a distribution of subjectivities and agencies?  These   are   some   of   the   questions   I   have   attempted   to   answer through   an   anthropological   research   project   on   cows,   farming technology and  farming science. The questions I ask are to a large degree   inspired   by   what   we   might   broadly   speak   of   as   the "posthumanist turn" – including  Actor­Network Theory – in Science Studies.  This turn, which started some time in the 1980’s,  solved some 2 problems  within   Science   Studies   and   created   some  that  were  new. The present paper deals with the following problem. In explaining science and  scientific knowledge, "posthumanist" researchers attempted to abandon  analytical  perspectives that were based on what Collins and Yearley defended as the "pivotal role" of human beings (Collins and Yearley, 1992:322). Scientific knowledge and institutions were not to be explained only by reference to purely human   intentions,   actions   and   controversies.   The   "actant"   of   early Actor­Network Theory was one such attempt. This figure makes all things that "act" equal, equal in being devoid of any intrinsic character (Akrich and Latour 1992), and equal in being an effect of networks, as well as being productive in them. Michel Callon called for a new agnosticism, and coined the term  generalized symmetry. Generalized symmetry, he writes, "is   similar   to   D.   C.   Bloor's   principle   of   symmetry   but   is considerably   extended.   The   goal   is   not   only   to   explain conflicting   viewpoints   and   arguments   in   scientific   or technological controversy in the same terms. We know that the   ingredients   of   controversies   are   a   mixture   of considerations concerning both Society and Nature. For this reason   we   require   the   observer   to   use   a   single   repertoire when they are described." (Callon 1986: 200) But is it really possible, generally, to use a single repertoire to talk about "Society" and "Nature"? If, to use a concrete case, we classify a computer as a "cultural artefact" and a cow as a "natural being", can they   be   treated   symmetrically?   Is   it   possible   –  at   least methodologically   –  to  be  agnostic   about  where  to   find   phenomena such as intentionality or subjectivity?  I do not think it is, and it is not possible because it is an essential 3 property   of  the   cow   (and   not   the   computer)   to   have   a   mind,   and because  this mindful   cow will enact  us  as  observers in  a  way  that makes it impossible for us to practice such an agnosticism. I like to let the following story illustrate this. The RunningCow During my fieldwork among milk­producing farmers and cows in Norway I lived and worked at a family farm. Every morning before breakfast I worked two hours in the cow­shed, milking and feeding cows. I worked with the farmer, and learned from him how to deal and   live   with   a   herd   of   20   large   milking   cows.   I   was   a   novice   at farming when I came to the field, so this fieldwork gave me my first close experience with farming life in general and  handling cows in particular. The cow­shed was of a kind known as "loose housing." In these sheds the cows move about freely, rather than being tied to a stanchion. In part they are identified by an electronic tag tied around the neck, and through various sensors in the cow­shed. These sensors identify   the   cows   electronically,   register   relevant   data,   such   as   the milk quantities, and regulate machines such as the high energy fodder dispenser. A central computer in the cow­shed collects and treats the data, and  helps the farmer to administer the cows. Here is a short story from one morning in the cow­shed. The   feeding   and   milking   of   the   cows   this   morning   was completed. The farmer and I were cleaning the milking stall at one end   of   the   cow­shed.   The   farmer   had   noticed   that   one   cow   was having her ovulation, her fertile period (which she has every three weeks when not pregnant). This was cow number 445. He called for the inseminator – the person from the cattle breeding company that does the artificial insemination – and asked me to hold back and tie cow   445,   and   to   herd   the   rest   of   the   flock   out   into   the   field.   He 4 pointed at a small group of cows, five or six animals at the far end of the shed. The rest of the cows had already left the shed and were grazing outside. Eager to do a good job, I rapidly got up from the milking stall and started walking towards the cows in a determined way. I did not know where cow 445 was among the 5 ­6 animals. I just moved towards the group. After having walked just a couple of meters,   one   cow   –  the   one   that   turned   out   to   be   445   –  suddenly jumped round and started to run. I was between her and the open door, not that I could have stopped her, but she ran into one of the sleeping pens, lay down on the floor and managed to squeeze herself under a fence (something that the fence was designed to prevent). From the other side of the fence she was able to reach the open door without passing me. Out in the field it turned out that she could not be caught for a number of hours.  I was totally taken by surprise.  I  had not yet focused  on  any particular cow. But she obviously knew that something was coming. So,   what   happened?   Something   about   my   attitude,   my determination,   perhaps   my   focused   gaze,   must   have   made   a difference.   Possibly   it   was   this   determined   gaze   that   was   most important. Both ethologists and farmers have told me that humans should be careful about staring directly at cows if they do not want to scare them. This fits with the popular biological belief I have heard many   times:   Humans,   together   with   owls,   eagles,   cats   and   other predators, have a stereoscopic gaze. We use two eyes to look straight ahead, providing depth vision. This is the gaze of the predator, the gaze of the hunter that follows the prey with all its attention. (Prey, typically, have their eyes more to each side of the skull. This provides better overview, but less depth vision.) Prey, probably, have learned to be afraid of this gaze, and  it would be a common thing to say, perhaps   also   professional   thing   to   say   within   certain   branches   of 5 ethology, that this fear is an instinctive reaction. I think it might well have been my focused predator’s gaze that scared   the   cow,   together   with   the   determination   conveyed   by   my entire body. But if this is the case, then it was not only an instinctive fear that made her run away. The other four or five cows in the group did   not   react   "instinctively"   at   my   gaze   and   determination.   They remained calm. Only the ovulating cow fled. This suggests that cow 445 peiced together three bits of "information": 1. The awareness of her own ovulation. 2. The past experience that when she is ovulating humans tend to do something unpleasant to her.1 3. The observation of my determined approach. I   want   to   argue   that   this   peicing   together   of   information   was   a subjective interpretation. And I want to argue that we have to try to understand   this   interpretation   by   means   of   some   kind   of "introspection", for example this one: "He is approaching one of us, it is probably me, since I am in my period of heat, and since humans do things to me at such times. What he is about to do isn' t pleasant, so I’d better get out of here as soon as possible." There  is  ethological   (and   neurological)   evidence   that  such  an introspective   interpretation   of   mammalian   thought   may   actually reflect   some   kind   of   conscious,   emotional,   cognitive   and   creative inner   life   of   the   animal,   see   for   example   (Allen   1998)   or   (Griffin 1992). This research does not prove that my particular interpretation of  the   cow's  mind   is  true,  in   the sense  that  it  describes   the actual thought of the cow. What I want to argue is that it mean that some such  interpretation  is  necessary,   even   if  it  will  always   be  tentative, 1 Many cows dislike artificial insemination and want to avoid it. They do however not normally avoid "natural insemination," when they are in their period of heat. They approach the bull with active flirtation. 6 always a matter of large translations. Ethologists   can   study   "instinctive"   behaviours   of   animals, universal   and   singular   to   a   given   species,   using   reproducible behaviouristic   experiments,   and   they   sometimes   they   do   so   well (Fraser and Broom 1974). They can also set up experiments to study the universal ability of particular species to act creatively in response to  unique  situations   (as   Gregory   Bateson   (1972)  did   on  dolphins). However, given this general ability to think creatively, we must be ready   also   to   explain   a   particular,   unique   situation  as   unique   and particular, not only as an expression of something general. When   tentatively   describing   the   particular   cognitive   and emotional   subject   position   of   the   cow,   I   attempted   to   make   an explanation   of   the   particular   and   unique.   It   seems   to   me   that   not doing   this   would   have   left   me   with   two   other   options:   1)   not explaining   the   particular   situation   at   all,   or   2)   explaining   it   by reference   to   a   natural   historical   instinct   or   to   a   behaviouristically imprinted response. Option 1) is fine, if we do not want to explain. 2) is   a   bad   explanation,   as   I   see   no   plausible   natural   historical   or repeated stimulus­response story which this event might fit. AnimalityVersusNon-Animality In the article "Configuring the user," Steve Woolgar discusses how far one   can   take   the   generalized   symmetry   of   Actor­Network   Theory (Woolgar  1991).  His particular  focus  is on  the distinction   between what he calls "animate" and "non­animate entities". What do we do about this distinction? Do posthumanist figures such as the actant do away with it? Woolgar's   article   is   about   how   computer   engineers   relate   to users   of   computers   through   those   computers.   He   describes   this 7 relationship   by   talking   of   how   computers   configure   users.   By "configuration" computer scientists normally means an adaptation of a computer to a specific use, and possibly also a specific user. Users can configure   their   computers,   adapt   them   to   their   specific   needs   and likes. Woolgar has turned the word around to show that users are also adapted to machines. Then, in the conclusion of the paper he writes:  Wait a minute. All this is very specist. The major part of the "analysis" focuses almost exclusively on animate agents as the originators of actions. For all the fine talk in the start about how   we   need   to   dissolve   boundaries   and   deconstruct divisions   between   animate   and   inanimate   entities,   our detailed empirical example hand sovereignty straight back to the animates. [...] Looking at the tape again, I am struck by the dignity of the machine in the face of the stumblings and mutterings of the human   actants.   For   example,   the   machine   sits   there throughout   the   whole   "wrong   socket"   episode, uncomplainingly. It must have known that the socket was not going to fit. (Woolgar, 1991: 90) Woolgar then raises a series of objections against this argument. Here is the last: The third objection is that such efforts at anthropomorphism amount to no more than metaphor. Surely the author cannot mean that the machine really knows the plug would not fit. It is just a figure of speech, a joke. (Woolgar, 1991:91)  And here is his counter objection to that objection:  This   objection   highlights   the   extent   to   which   conventional attitudes about intentionality are entrenched in the prevailing 8  moral order of representation [...]. It contrasts descriptions of human   actions   with   descriptions   of   machine   action   and dismisses as merely "metaphorical" those descriptions which seem   to   imbue   machine   action   with   intentionality.   But, surely, the interesting question is what entitles us to attribute intentionality to non­machines in the first place? What makes our   description   of   human   intentionality   other   than metaphorical? (Woolgar, 1991: 91)  So,   Woolgar’s   argument  is   that  if  we  are   bringing  together   human beings   and   machines   by   the   use   of   metaphor,   human   beings   and machines   must   first   have   been   semiotically   separated,   since metaphors precisely works by semiotically bringing together elements that   first   have   been   semiotically   distinguished.   “The   machine   must have   known   that   the   socket   was   not   going   to   fit”   is   only   an anthropomorphism in a culture, a “prevailing moral order”, where a semiotic   distinction   between   human   beings   (or   “animates”)   and machines (or “non­animates”) already exists. There   is   however   one   rather   straightforward   response   to Woolgar' s   question   above,   a   response   that   makes   his   argument problematic: Human bodies, or animal bodies – evolved through long, slow natural histories – make the description of our intentionalities something other than metaphorical. To include  those bodies in our descriptions, we need to include the stuff of things and not only their relations in these descriptions. Relationsand Essences First,   I   note   that   what   I   described   above   was   a   meeting   between subjects – an inter­subjective meeting (taking my own subjectivity for granted and arguing for the subjectivity of the cow). Secondly, I note 9 that it was a meeting between two large mammals, two bodies that are more or less on the same scale in time and space, even if cows partly live in a somewhat slower time than that of humans. This communication has been involved (both as a cause and as an effect) in the co­evolution of mammals. We could say that it has been involved in the evolutions of mammalian bodies for the last 200 million years. Or we could just as well include the pre­mammalian reptiles and go back 400 million years, or even further. There is in practice no beginning. The sensitivity to the focused stereoscopic gaze of the predator, the way it gazes at the potential prey, is just one of the many bodily  and  communicative  sensitivities that have  evolved through   millions   of   years   of   diverse   co­evolutions.2  This   sensitivity was   probably   only   one   of  the  many   bodily  cues   to  which  the  cow reacted.   And,   as   I   have   argued   above,   she   did   not   just   react "instinctively"   to   these   cues.   She   interpreted   them   in   a   cultural, technological   and   historically   specific   context,   including   her   past experience of being artificially inseminated by humans. But, still: the interaction   between   the   cow   and   I   was  also  shaped   by   millions   of years of natural history. There are relations. The cow and I enacted our particular kinds of subjects/subjectivities in the encounter that I described above. And there is the stuff of things, their  essences  – such as natural historical essences – even if these essences are enacted in relations. The cow and   I   came   to   an   encounter   with   our   bodies,   evolved   through   an almost   infinitely   long,   and   partly  common,   natural   history.   In   that encounter   we   enacted   two   specific   kinds   of   subject   positions:   The scared cow and the surprised human. Those subject positions are not only relational; they are also essential qualities of cows and humans.3 2 There is also the sensitivity of the symetrically challenged predator. If you do meet a bear face to face, the most stupid thing to do is to stare it right into the eyes. That is a signal of war. 3 The words essence and essential are tricky to use. I do not want to defend an essentialist 10  What then about computers, like those of the computerized cow­ sheds? Are they, or can they be as lively as cows? Well, the simple and  obvious empirical answer is that encountering the computers I experienced   nothing  comparable to my  encounters with cows.  This answer, however, is not entirely empirical. If I saw liveliness purely as an   effect   of   relations,   I   would   have   no   problems   finding   lively computers.   Sherry   Turkle   has   shown   how   children   treat   computer games as animate creatures (Turkle 1984). If relations come first, if things can be reduced to relations, then computer games can become animate beings: From the premise that children see computer games as living beings we could draw the conclusion that computer games are living beings. (And it would fit Woolgar' s argument: Children are not yet "entrenched in the prevailing moral order".) The   story   looks   quite   different   if   we   include   the   stuff   of computers in our analysis. Encountering the computers of the cow­ shed did not demand any explanation in terms of their inner life, and given the stuff they are made up of – a plastic box containing micro chips – there is no reason why they should demand one either. My attempt to describe the reasoning and inner life of the cow is most certainly not entirely true. It is however much better empirically grounded than Woolgar' s description of the dignity of the non­moving computer.   Not   to   take   account   of   some   kind   of   mental,   cognitive, emotional and conscious process in the cow – given that we include what   we   know   about   the   essential   stuff   of   cows   and   computers   – kind of essence, but I do think we need a word to designate that which is not relational, not contingent upon something else, but intrinsic to itself. I do however speak about a relative essence, as the essential stuff of things, say mammals, are products of millions of year of (co-) evolutionry relationships. Very briefly we might say that as relations are the product of the essences of the things related, so are the essential stuff of things products of relations. Biologist Brian Goodwin has worked on this in more detail with respect to biological evolution. His argument is that organisms are not only the random product of the contingent relations of Darwinian evolution, but that they are also the product of their intrinsic, dynamical properties. He is thus trying to reeintoduce and tweak the concept of "natural kinds" in ways similar to how I here speak of essences (Goodwin and Webster 1996). 11 would   be   as   absurd   as   it   is   to   take   account   of   the   emotional   and cognitive  life   of   computers,   in   explaining   a   problem   with   a   wrong socket. * Perhaps it is easier to accept posthumanist constructions such as the actant   if   we   see   them   as   an   methodological   devices   rather   than ontological entities. Perhaps we can agree that the "perspective" of the computer is just a fancy literal invention of Woolgar, but still defend a methodological   agnosticism   where   we   remain   open   minded   as   to what might be actants or subjects in the world. Perhaps we can allow agency,   actantiality   and/or   subjectivity   of   different   sorts   to   be   the results   of   our   investigations,   rather   than   to   start   out   with   these notions as given entities. I think that in some cases we can practice such an agnosticism (for example when studying texts), but that in other cases we cannot. In   an   encounter   between   me   (as   a   human   being   and   as   an anthropologist) and an "other," I shape the subjectivity (or actantiality or objectivity)  of the other. At the  same  time  the  other shapes my subjectivity, and it does so in a way that makes it more or less easy for me to meet the other as a "subject." In the case of the cow­shed, that co­production caught me. Coming to a cow­shed to observe as well   as   inseminate   cows,   infinite   amounts   of   Actor­Network deconstructions of subjectivity could not have changed my gaze and her   flight.   I   cound   not   have   been   agnostic   about   where   to   find subjectivity. My body would have deceived me. Moral Orders On the one hand there is a problem in speaking about the distinction between animates and  non­animates as  part of  a "prevailing  moral 12 order," as Woolgar does, at least if we understand this moral order in a   traditional   "cultural"   way,   as   if   it   was   something   specifically "Western",   as   if   it   was   something   that   originated,   say,   somewhere around the Mediterranean some 2000 or 3000 years ago. This moral order cannot be reduced to "culture" or "representations". On the other hand, the distinction between "animates" and "non­ animates" is a "prevailing moral order", or rather a large set of moral orders. But they are natural as well as cultural orders. The many co­ evolutions of animals on earth are such moral orders, naturecultural orders4.   They   are   orders   where   the   many   differences   between animates and non­animates make differences that matter. It matters to a cow to be enacted as a subject, and the cow helps to bring about that enactment. It does not matter to a computer to be enacted as a subject   (even   if   it   does   sometimes   contribute   in   bringing   such   an enactment about5). Woolgar's  argument for equating the "point of view" of humans to that of computers is in some sense "good Actor­Network Theory" (even   if   pedagogically   exaggerated),   in   the   sense   that   it   is   anti­ essentialist. The essences of machines and humans are irrelevant. The relations   that   constitute   them   are   everything,   just   as   if   they   were actants, effects and producers of networks. Anti­essentialism   can   be   another   fundamentalism,   if   relations are taken to come first, to precede the relata, that which is related. I came   to   the   cow­shed   equipped   with   an   Actor­Network   openness about   where   I   could   expect   to   find   subjectivity.   The   cow,   the computer   and   I   ended   up   reproducing   a   "prevailing   moral   order" 4 Natureculture is one of Donna Haraway's hybrids. It is both fleshy and linguistic but never only linguistic (Haraway and Goodeve 2000). 5 Computers can mime subjectivity, sometimes convincingly. It is a mimicry precisely because computers lack essential subjectivity. For a discussion of what it might take for computers to really be alive (as well as for what it might take to make and study such living computers), see (Isabelle Stengers 2000). 13 because   we,   with   our   bodies   and   plastic   boxes,   co­produced   a distinction, a boundary of animality. We produced subjectivity some places   (in   the   cow   and   the   human)   and   not   other   places   (in   the computer).  Acknowledgement Many   thanks   to   the   organizers   and   participants   of   the   workshop Boundaries:  Materialities,  Differences,   Continuities  for inspiring  days, and   to   Ingunn   Moser,   María   Guzman   and   Kari­Anne   Ulfsnes   for comments to the manuscript. 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