Ecofeminist scholar Val Plumwood passed away last week. Her major theoretical works that influenced me include Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1993) and Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason (2002). They think she died from a snakebite. This, after having survived a crocodile wrenching her from a tree and pulling her into a death roll in 1985. I can’t help be angry with the snake that took this brilliant mind from us-imagining the cold-blooded creature lashing out against Dr. Plumwood in some expression of biblical conniving and wickedness. What did the reptiles have against her? But I wouldn’t dare admit these musings, else I be the one committing the sin-anthropomorphism.

For many scientists, anthropomorphism is one of the scientific mortal sins. It should be avoided at all costs, as it reflects a failure to attain adequate standards of holy objectivity. For a few of us scholars of human-animal interactions though, anthropomorphism is valid, ethical, and an interpretive filter that can be productively engaging.

I can hear them now: “Heresy!” They proclaim that ascribing human traits to animals is nothing more than a mode of narration that causes misconceptions in science and literature, reducing humanity to animality and rationality to instinct, or worse–elevating brutes to human status!

Of course I’m kidding about the scheming reptiles plotting the demise of Val Plumwood. But let’s take a moment and consider this thing that scientists reject so completely. Just exactly what is meant by anthropomorphism, anyway? Val Plumwood suggested that there are various senses of anthropomorphism, both general and specific cases. In one definition, it means attributing to nonhumans characteristics that humans have; in another definition it means attributing to nonhumans characteristics that only humans have. A broader definition claims anthropomorphism anytime animals are represented in intentional or communicative terms. If we go with that sort of catch-all definition of anthropomorphism, what Plumwood called “weak anthropomorphism,” it makes it very hard (if not impossible) for any representations of nonhumans to avoid being labeled anthropomorphic.

The weak anthropomorphism argument contends that, because we are human, we must filter all of our observations of nonhuman behavior through our thoroughly human conceptual apparatus; because any interpretation of a nonhuman animal-indeed, all interpretations-will necessarily be shrouded in human concepts, resulting in some measure of anthropomorphism. Given that definition of anthropomorphism, it is clear that when we consider animal experiences, we just can’t avoid it. What is less obvious to me is how this is necessarily harmful or invalidating (or that there are no practices to ameliorate or counter any negative consequence).

Like Plumwood, I think there is no good (or logical) reason why we should not speak of the nonhuman sphere in intentional and “mentalistic” terms. We do it constantly in everyday parlance, and would hardly be able to avoid it. But is it irrational, hopelessly romantic, and unscientific to talk of anything nonhuman in this way-as having agency, communication, sapience, emotions, and so on? Or could it be that the scientific resistance to all anthropomorphism is simply an exercise of hegemonic discourse intent on retaining the order of society it established in the first place? Val Plumwood saw it this way: "A time-tested strategy for projects of mastery is the normalization and enforcement of impoverishing, pacifying and deadening vocabularies for what is to be reduced and ruthlessly consumed. This seems to be the main contemporary function of the concept of anthropomorphism, especially to the extent that it aims to delegitimate intentional description of non-human others." (from Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis of Reason, p. 56).

So, should we all embrace anthropomorphism willy-nilly in our explorations of human-animal interactions? No, of course not. Plumwood didn’t think so either. For her, the question wasn’t whether or not some degree of humanization of perspective is present (she thought it always will be at the background level); what’s important is how damaging that perspective is, what its meaning is, and what practices could be used to counter the damage if necessary.

Indeed, the potential issues when considering animals are actually no different (in form) from the case of representing human cultural difference. There are many well-known traps and difficulties in such representations. There can likewise be problems in representing another species’ communicative powers or subjectivities, but that doesn’t mean such representation is impossible. To be sure, careful attention should be paid to the content and context of any social or scientific inquiry.

Anthropomorphism can also be misplaced (and even become harmful) when it leads to a complete obliteration to difference between humans and animals. Denial of difference is a key part of the structures of subordination and colonization to which animals are subject. In these cases, an indictment of anthropomorphism may legitimately draw our attention to a loss of sensitivity to and respect for animal difference. For example, when out of control, idiotic co-workers are represented in print and television advertisements as chimpanzees dressed in human business attire (as in the TV and print ads for careerbuilder.com), they are ridiculed as degenerate forms of humans while, at the same time, the animals’ own differences and excellences are denied or neglected. This form of anthropomorphism deserves a loud “Boo!"

All of that said, we must be careful not to collapse human into animal or vise versa. In my view, the human-animal divide must be diminished, but the recognition of an animal continuum is equally important to maintain respect for animality, else we revert back to yet another form of anthropocentrism. But that, my friends, is a topic for another day.

Read the story of Val Plumwood’s encounter with the crocrodile: http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM30/ValPlumwood.html

Postscript (3/6/2008) Not a snakebite afterall? http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23332288-2,00.html