Oryctolagus Cuniculus, the Teacher of History and Crumpled Geographies

Abstract

Ambivalence sticks to Oryctolagus cuniculus like a second skin. Originally from Spain, this homebody animal gets lost 500 metres away from his burrow and is scared of water. Today, he is found living on every continent except for Antarctica. With him, nothing is ever simple. He can be domestic or farmed, a pet or a wild animal, a ‘pest’ or an ‘umbrella species’. He is a champion of all categories and moves fluidly from one to the next. The concept of species has always been slippery and the concept of an invasive species even more so. Following the rabbit in his meanderings, we come across encounters between species that humans do not necessarily have control over anymore. We also come across seizures, resistances, submissions, and bifurcations. Is the rabbit only made of alliances and conflicts caught in taut relations? Oryctolagus cuniculus is a masterful teacher of lessons of crumpled history and broken geographies. Drawing from examples of his many adventures, we refer to the ‘contaminated diversity’ dear to Anna Tsing. This seems to be in the vein of the three concepts proposed by John Dewey: ‘self-action’, ‘interaction’, and ‘transaction’ (1949). The transaction rejects the postulate of intrinsic or pre-existing essences. It points to worlds that are always unresolved, provisional, and open to reinterpretation across time and space. If we consider being alive to be a transaction, it is also a way of understanding life that challenges our relationships to objects of knowledge and the ways we name them.