Becoming Earth

Cross-species tracking among hunter-gatherers in southern Africa facilitates an ontological process of trans-species ambiguity, where humans and more-than-humans exchange sentience. Drawing on comparative historical analysis and the work of anthropologist Mathias Guenther, the paper argues that this ontological fluidity serves a prehumanistic, somatic, and intuitive function, engaging the body's physical, emotional, and mythological aspects to assimilate a multidimensional environment. The author concludes that such trans-species sentience informs a metaphysics of Becoming Earth, suggesting that a posthumanist future depends on a prehumanist understanding of interspecies consciousness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Drawing on the comparative historical analysis of hunter-gatherer and forager lifeways alongside the science and art of tracking among hunter-gatherer communities in southern Africa, this paper examines the phenomenon of interspecies transference, or ontological assimilation of sentience, experienced during the practice of cross-species tracking. This paper aims to demonstrate that cross-species tracking facilitates an ontological process of trans-species ambiguity between humans and more-than-humans, which underpins (as I have phrased it) a “prehumanistic consciousness” critical to our continued posthumanistic existence as an ecological species. The theoretical framework for this analysis draws on Process Philosophy, Philosophical Posthumanism, New Animist theories, and an Anthropology Beyond the Human, and utilizes the animistic relational models of ontological fluidity among hunter-gatherer communities developed by the anthropologist Mathias Guenther. Through these models, this paper demonstrates that ontological fluidity serves a prehumanistic, somatic, and intuitive function, assimilating one’s multidimensional environment by engaging the body's and consciousness's physical, emotional, and mythological aspects. This paper concludes that the trans-species sentience experienced during tracking informs a metaphysics of Becoming Earth, where a posthumanist future depends on a prehumanist understanding of interspecies consciousness.