Interspecies Engagement in Medical Anthropology

Human–animal interdependencies define longstanding concerns for anthropologists. Within this vast terrain, medical anthropologists claim rights to a significant portion, marked most notably, perhaps, by our sustained attention to nonhuman species as pathogens, vectors, and reservoirs of disease. Our discipline, nevertheless, has been slow to engage with contemporary theorizing about interspecies entanglements, a deficit this volume’s collection seeks to rectify. As I argue below, this collection opens up new domains of study, analysis, and understanding, where an especially important intervention involves enfolding interspecies sensibilities within praxes of care.