Patografie empatyczne: O chorobie i umieraniu zwierząt towarzyszących w perspektywie etnografii wielogatunkowej

Abstract

Confrontation with disease, aging, related suffering and finally dying are natural elements of life, common to both humans and nonhuman animals. At the same time, animal’s dying is an experience to which humans, due to their limited ability to communicate with the animal, have limited access. This article, based on ethnographic research among companion animals’ caretakers, analyzes the cultural aspects of palliative care for a pet, with particular emphasis on the impact of the terminal disease on the specificity of the human-animal relationship and the potential analogies and differences between the experience of disease and death of a close pet and a close person. Reflection is situated within the paradigm of multispecies ethnography, which postulates extending the field of interest of anthropology to animals, understood as social actors, and to include them in the research process. The theoretical framework that I propose for the analysis is the category of empathic pathographies, understood as narratives with functions similar to those that can be found in first-person stories about human experience of illness.