Towards the necessity of a new interactive approach integrating ethnology, ecology and ethology in the study of the relationship between Kyrgyz stockbreeders and wolves

Abstract

The cohabitation between men and wolves arouses passions but also scientific questions. Recent ecological studies show that human activities have an unquestionable influence on wolves’ behavior. In the same way, if one refers to various ethnological works, it is undeniable that human populations are sensitive to this neighbor whose presence is marked both materially and symbolically. However, in spite of the apparent reciprocity of the relationship between these two species, they were studied up to now only in a unilateral way by ecology, ethology and ethnology. Now, the analysis of data resulting from my fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan shows a more complex reality to the relationship, which compels us to reconsider the way of treating it. The cohabitation between wolves and men, as experienced by Kyrgyz for centuries, is indeed assimilated to a real inter-relationship made up of reciprocal influences. Kyrgyz and wolves seem thus to be involved in an interactive and dynamic relational system. The latter imposes for its study a new approach, one that is more global and dialectical, concerned with the interspecific character of the relationship. However, such an approach inevitably raises methodological if not epistemological problems this article wishes to highlight.