Previously, due to their prevailing anthropocentrism, the radical rejection of all kinds of anthropomorphism and biological essentialism, non-human animals have rarely been considered in the humanities and social sciences. The forms of relationships between non-human animals and humans very heterogeneous across historical and cultural settings, but also within individual societies; their reciprocal relationships are multidimensional. In light of this, the contributions in this volume pose the question of what the consideration of non-human animals and human-animal relations means for the different academic disciplines, and which challenges arise for these fields of research, their theories and methodologies.With forewords from the ethnologists Marc Bekoff and Kurt Kotrschal.
