Ethologies of Education

Abstract

This essay offers a “version” of Vinciane Despret’s “ethology of ethology” through close engagement with the concepts Despret constructs in What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions? Reading Despret with other thinkers associated with feminist science studies, the essay sketches Despret’s critique of reductive animal science, and her corresponding work—often collaborative—to find more open, risky ways of researching animal behavior, including the behavior of the human animals we call “scientists.” The distinction between control-driven work in laboratories and the more anecdotal observations she finds in some ethology and anthropology leads Despret to propose a certain ethics of asking questions and listening to answers that Snaza proposes could guide a different, more risky approach to educational research.