Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation

Scholars from all disciplines are becoming increasingly conscious of the co-dependence between humans and more-than-humans. This special collection engages these debates, guided by a question both practical and theoretical: What makes good relationships between humans and nonhumans in societies und...

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Main Authors: Paula Palanco Lopez, Anna Krzywoszynska, Agnese Bankovska
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Suomen Antropologinen Seura (Finnish Anthropological Society) 2025-04-01
Series:Suomen Antropologi
Online Access:https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/142434
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author Paula Palanco Lopez
Anna Krzywoszynska
Agnese Bankovska
author_facet Paula Palanco Lopez
Anna Krzywoszynska
Agnese Bankovska
author_sort Paula Palanco Lopez
collection DOAJ
description Scholars from all disciplines are becoming increasingly conscious of the co-dependence between humans and more-than-humans. This special collection engages these debates, guided by a question both practical and theoretical: What makes good relationships between humans and nonhumans in societies under strain? The essays collected in this issue explore this question through different cases of more-than-human relationality. In this introduction, we briefly present these contributions, placing them in dialogue with the concept of the contact zone. The contact zone, we argue, provides a powerful conceptual tool for thinking about the how as well as the why in human–more-than-human encounters, as it highlights the materiality and constructedness of more-than-human affects and ethics. Thus, the first part of this introduction highlights how the different contributions to the special issue further the conceptual work ushered by the concept of the contact zone. Furthermore, we make a contribution to the growing literature on more-than-human contact zones by drawing attention to the tensions and frictions that necessarily appear within these. What may be helpful in understanding and navigating these tensions, we argue, is the concept of more than-human negotiation. We believe that this ecological view of contact zones opens up an exciting new arena for more-than-human research. Keywords: more-than-human, contact zones, negotiation, entanglements, relationality, special issue
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spelling doaj-art-e0f8725b4f4e4255b7f3930e343390a92025-08-20T03:08:32ZengSuomen Antropologinen Seura (Finnish Anthropological Society)Suomen Antropologi1799-89722025-04-0149210.30676/jfas.142434Towards More-Than-Human NegotiationPaula Palanco Lopez0Anna KrzywoszynskaAgnese Bankovska1University of OuluUniversity of Helsinki Scholars from all disciplines are becoming increasingly conscious of the co-dependence between humans and more-than-humans. This special collection engages these debates, guided by a question both practical and theoretical: What makes good relationships between humans and nonhumans in societies under strain? The essays collected in this issue explore this question through different cases of more-than-human relationality. In this introduction, we briefly present these contributions, placing them in dialogue with the concept of the contact zone. The contact zone, we argue, provides a powerful conceptual tool for thinking about the how as well as the why in human–more-than-human encounters, as it highlights the materiality and constructedness of more-than-human affects and ethics. Thus, the first part of this introduction highlights how the different contributions to the special issue further the conceptual work ushered by the concept of the contact zone. Furthermore, we make a contribution to the growing literature on more-than-human contact zones by drawing attention to the tensions and frictions that necessarily appear within these. What may be helpful in understanding and navigating these tensions, we argue, is the concept of more than-human negotiation. We believe that this ecological view of contact zones opens up an exciting new arena for more-than-human research. Keywords: more-than-human, contact zones, negotiation, entanglements, relationality, special issue https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/142434
spellingShingle Paula Palanco Lopez
Anna Krzywoszynska
Agnese Bankovska
Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
Suomen Antropologi
title Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
title_full Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
title_fullStr Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
title_full_unstemmed Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
title_short Towards More-Than-Human Negotiation
title_sort towards more than human negotiation
url https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/article/view/142434
work_keys_str_mv AT paulapalancolopez towardsmorethanhumannegotiation
AT annakrzywoszynska towardsmorethanhumannegotiation
AT agnesebankovska towardsmorethanhumannegotiation