In this research note, I discuss my primary fieldwork findings on tracking and gathering in river–rodent– human entanglements, showing that the literature on empathy in more-than-human anthropology (Bubandt and Willerslev 2015) and in psychology (Ekman 2003) can be read and applied in a comprehensive way. I suggest that empathy is a helpful lens through which to address both life and death in hunting and gathering practices, since it draws attention to the role of both instrumental and intuitive motives in shaping multispecies relations.
I will present here two interspecies practices of tracking and gathering in riverine environments of The Netherlands: muskrat trapping and beaver filmmaking. The muskrat trapper reads the landscape and sets traps in order to gather the lifeless bodies of muskrats, whereas the filmmaker sets out to encounter the live bodies of beavers and shoot their images. Comparing practices where ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ empathy play a role, as suggested by Bubandt and Willerslev (2015), provides the opportunity to evaluate this ambivalence that empathy seems to embody. Using empathy as a lens makes visible that these two opposing practices have more in common than might seem to be the case at first glance. Comparison also complicates too stark normative distinctions between ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ empathy.
Publication of Inge Dekker ‘Shooting with Empathy: fieldnotes on muskrat trappers and beaver filmmakers’
In this article, anthropologist Inge Dekker and the research participants, reflect on the ambiguities of killing and appreciating beavers and muskrats. When reading the article, you find pictures and fieldnotes comparing the crafts of muskrat trapping and beaver filmmaking in the Netherlands.
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