Editing Social Scientific Analysis of Human-Animal Sexual Interactions (section)

===1. Introduction===
In the post-modern age, animals are no longer viewed as mere objects, subject to human designs, and have acquired much greater prominence in their own right. This process is clear at a social level, in the rise of animal rights movements, and in growing legal, cultural, and ethical debates <ref>. Ingold T.  The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. Routledge; London, UK: 2000.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=The+Perception+of+the+Environment:+Essays+on+Livelihood,+Dwelling+and+Skill&author=T.+Ingold&publication_year=2000& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B1-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref> How far should animal rights extend? To what extent can these rights be comparable to human rights? [[Further]], ultimately, how does this recognition affect the very consideration of what it is to be human?



The development of certain species cannot be understood without human action <ref>2. Haraway D.  The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. Prickly Paradigm Press; Chicago, IL, USA: 2003  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=The+Companion+Species+Manifesto:+Dogs,+People,+and+Significant+Otherness&author=D.+Haraway&publication_year=2003& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B2-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref>. Similarly, human experience cannot be understood without analysing our economic, symbolic, political, and even purely physical interactions with animals. Social sciences in general, and anthropology in particular, have played an important role in recent years in the theoretical questioning of boundaries between human and non-human<ref>Descola P. Human natures. Soc. Anthropol. 2009;17:145–157. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8676.2009.00063.x. [[https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.1469-8676.2009.00063.x CrossRef]] [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Soc.+Anthropol.&title=Human+natures&author=P.+Descola&volume=17&publication_year=2009&pages=145-157&doi=10.1111/j.1469-8676.2009.00063.x& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B3-animals-10-01780 Ref list]] </ref><ref>Descola P.  Más allá de naturaleza y cultura. Amorrortu; Buenos Aires, Argentina: 2012.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=M%C3%A1s+all%C3%A1+de+naturaleza+y+cultura&author=P.+Descola&publication_year=2012& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B4-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref><ref>Latour B.  Nunca fuimos modernos. Siglo XXI; Buenos Aires, Argentina: 2007.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Nunca+fuimos+modernos&author=B.+Latour&publication_year=2007& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B5-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref><ref>Viveiros de Castro E.  Metafísicas caníbales: Líneas de Antropología Postestructural. Katz; Buenos Aires, Argentina: 2010.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Metaf%C3%ADsicas+can%C3%ADbales:+L%C3%ADneas+de+Antropolog%C3%ADa+Postestructural&author=E.+Viveiros+de+Castro&publication_year=2010& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B6-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref><ref>Viveiros de Castro E.  La mirada del Jaguar: Introducción al Perspectivismo Amerindio. Tinta Limón; Buenos Aires, Argentina: 2013.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=La+mirada+del+Jaguar:+Introducci%C3%B3n+al+Perspectivismo+Amerindio&author=E.+Viveiros+de+Castro&publication_year=2013& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B7-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref>. Within the field of the social sciences, there is growing concern to understand ‘the social’ dovetailed with ‘the environmental’; this implies rethinking relations between humans and the other animate and inanimate beings with which we interact<ref>Ingold T.  Introduction. In: Ingold T., editor. What is an animal? Routledge; London, UK: 1988. pp. 1–16. [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=What+is+an+animal?&author=T.+Ingold&publication_year=1988& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B8-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref>. This questioning ultimately entails rethinking the way in which we investigate. This question is raised in Kohn’s emblematic work<ref>Kohn E. How dogs dream: Amazonian natures and the politics of transspecies engagement. Am. Ethnol. 2007;34:3–24. doi: 10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.3. [[https://doi.org/10.1525%2Fae.2007.34.1.3 CrossRef]] [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Am.+Ethnol.&title=How+dogs+dream:+Amazonian+natures+and+the+politics+of+transspecies+engagement&author=E.+Kohn&volume=34&publication_year=2007&pages=3-24&doi=10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.3& Google Scholar]] [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7600587/#B9-animals-10-01780 Ref list]]</ref>, which signals the need to “shift ethnographic practice towards a process that would situate worlds, which were previously too human, within a broad and emerging series of interrelations that would exceed the purely human”<ref>Kohn E., Cruzada S.M. How dogs dream. Ten years later. AIBR: Rev. Antropol. Iberoam. 2017;12:273–311. [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=AIBR:+Rev.+Antropol.+Iberoam.&title=How+dogs+dream.+Ten+years+later&author=E.+Kohn&author=S.M.+Cruzada&volume=12&publication_year=2017&pages=273-311& Google Scholar]]</ref>

This move to question the centrality of ‘the human’ has two planes. The first refutes the boundaries between species, even questioning the very validity of the term species<ref name=":3">Singer P. Heavy Petting.  [(accessed on 1 September 2019)];2001  Available online:  https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/2001----.htm</ref>. The second queries the frontiers between machine and human<ref>Haraway D.  A manifesto for cyborgs: Science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980. In: Seidman E., editor. The Postmodern Turn: New Perspectives on Social Theory. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 1994. pp. 82–115. [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=The+Postmodern+Turn:+New+Perspectives+on+Social+Theory&author=D.+Haraway&publication_year=1994& Google Scholar]]</ref>. Thus, we are entering what several authors have begun to define as the post-humanist age<ref>Hayles N.K.  How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press; Chicago, IL, USA: 1999.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=How+We+Became+Posthuman:+Virtual+Bodies+in+Cybernetics,+Literature,+and+Informatics&author=N.K.+Hayles&publication_year=1999& Google Scholar]]</ref><ref>Lafontaine C. La cybernétiquematrice du posthumanisme. Cités. 2000;4:59–71. [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Cit%C3%A9s&title=La+cybern%C3%A9tiquematrice+du+posthumanisme&author=C.+Lafontaine&volume=4&publication_year=2000&pages=59-71& Google Scholar]]</ref><ref>Cooney B.  Posthumanity: Thinking Philosophically about the Future. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; Lanham, Maryland: 2003.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Posthumanity:+Thinking+Philosophically+about+the+Future&author=B.+Cooney&publication_year=2003& Google Scholar]]</ref><ref>Wolfe C.  What Is Posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press; Minneapolis, MN, USA: 2010.  [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=What+Is+Posthumanism?&author=C.+Wolfe&publication_year=2010& Google Scholar]] </ref>; this generates not only scientific debates but also moral and ethical reassessments<ref>Dalla Bernardina S. Amours sans frontières: Nouveaux horizons de la zoophilie à l’époque de la libération animale. Anthropol. Soc. 2015;39:103–120. doi: 10.7202/1030841ar. [[https://doi.org/10.7202%2F1030841ar CrossRef]] [[https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?journal=Anthropol.+Soc.&title=Amours+sans+fronti%C3%A8res:+Nouveaux+horizons+de+la+zoophilie+%C3%A0+l%E2%80%99%C3%A9poque+de+la+lib%C3%A9ration+animale&author=S.+Dalla+Bernardina&volume=39&publication_year=2015&pages=103-120&doi=10.7202/1030841ar& Google Scholar]]</ref>.

That said, in this resignification of human-animal relations within the social sciences, there are, nonetheless, certain aspects which have been, and indeed continue to be, pushed to the background, from which the old and the new perspectives, equally, shy away. This is the case with sexual practices between humans and animals.

In this study, we are interested precisely in examining the different approaches generated within the social sciences in relation to human interspecies sexuality.

We are aware that a subject such as this attracts a certain degree of social rejection, which encompasses all manner of moral debates. It is not our aim here to examine such discussions in depth, but instead to analyse how subjects and constructed practices have been placed beyond the borders of normal sexuality, despite ethnographic evidence which shows the unequal signification of such practices depending on the social and historical context.