Accessing Orangutans’ Perspectives

Abstract

Anthropologists are paying increasing attention to human/animal entanglements rather than treating animals merely as vehicles through which to explore human social life. We suggest that this emerging multispecies focus is best served by research that considers not only humans’ responses to animals but also their responses to us and that attempts to access animals’ subjective experiences. Following the interdisciplinary methods of ethnoprimatology, we used a combination of ethnography and ethology to study orangutans’ relationships with one another and caregivers’ interpretations of orangutans’ bonds at Auckland Zoo, New Zealand. Drawing on two examples, we argue that integrating ethnography with both qualitative and quantitative descriptions of animal behavior can be useful for representing both species’ daily lives and for comparing interpretations obtained from different research methods. We conclude that although we were not able to capture the experiences of our human and orangutan participants equally, paying attention to both species highlighted how humans’ interpretations of animals’ motivations, relationships, and behavior differ depending on their roles and the tools they employ for understanding animals’ experiences. We also suggest that using anecdotes and empathy in research with animals goes some way toward acknowledging animals’ agency and collapsing artificial distinctions between us and them.