Kinship with Piglets

Inter-species Intra-actions and Corporeal Yearnings

Abstract

Our own animately e/motional bodies are yearning for relationships with other bodies of the more-than-human kind. To support this opinion, I describe an intra-action caring for three rescued piglets that led to an awareness of human animal and animal-other relationships. The following questions are addressed: 1) What is involved corporeally, e/motionally, and sensorily in interspecies intra-actions? 2) What are the affects and telling effects of these intra-actions? I describe how my intra-action with the piglets manifested an awareness of the liveliness of other animals, and an understanding of interspecies kinship. To further understand interspecies kinship, I explore the role of the body, and the e/motional and sensory affordances of the intra-actions involving me and the piglets. The concepts of corporeality, inter-corporeality, and trans-corporeality are considered. In the second part of the paper, I describe tensions of human exceptionalism that were revealed in caring for the piglets.