Care-full research ethics in multispecies relations on dairy farms

Abstract

Although ethical questions are at the core of more-than-human geographies, more attention needs to be paid on researchers’ ethical responsibilities to more-than-human research subjects in social scientific research. In this paper I critically analyze my empirical work on Finnish dairy farms from the perspective of multispecies research ethics. I suggest that the concept of care is useful in understanding more-than-human research ethics. Attending to the needs of others can work as a starting point for making difficult ethical decisions in the field. However, in contested moments, different needs are often in conflict. Here, situated ethical responses might be needed in relation to the practices of fieldwork, for example to avoid causing harm to research subjects. Importantly, researchers have to care for their research subjects also through their analysis; addressing the questions related to research ethics also in terms of knowledge politics. When the ethics of care is complemented with the notion of ethics of exclusion, it has potential to tease out broader responsibilities both in interactions and knowledge about other animals and more-than-human research settings.