Ambiguous beings: the ontological autonomy of Inuit dogs

Part of the attraction of relational ontology is its encouragement to discard conventional epistemological hierarchies. We needn’t frame our investigations with the usual weighty themes – economy, social relations, ideology – but can begin anywhere, with any sort of question, and tug on the thread until the archaeological fabric unravels. Here I begin with dogs, and their relations with humans and other animals in the Inuit past. Inuit had an exceptionally complex relationship with the dogs that shared their houses, pulled their sleds, helped them hunt, provided fur (and occasionally food), and generally occupied an ambiguous space between Inuit, non-Inuit humans, and other animals in Inuit belief systems. As beings that in part elected to live closely with humans (they often roamed free in villages) but were also entrapped by them (they exhibit repetitive patterns of stress and trauma due to work and human violence), and that enjoyed equally complex relations with the wild canids that killed them and reproduced with them, dogs represent an interesting opportunity to think about the ontological autonomy of non-human creatures.

关系本体论（relational ontology）的吸引力之一，在于它鼓励摒弃传统的认识论层级。我们无需以常规的厚重核心主题——经济、社会关系、意识形态——来框定研究，而是可以从任意场景、任意类型的问题切入，顺着线索抽丝剥茧，直至梳理清考古学研究的整体脉络。本文以犬只为切入点，探讨因纽特人（Inuit）过往时代里，犬只与人类、其他动物之间的关系。因纽特人与犬只之间存在着极为复杂的联系：犬只与他们同住居所、拉拽雪橇、协助狩猎、提供皮毛（偶尔还会作为食物），而在因纽特人的信仰体系中，犬只始终处于因纽特人、非因纽特人类与其他动物之间的模糊地带。作为部分主动选择与人类亲近的存在（它们常于村落中自由游荡），却又受制于人类（因劳作与人类的暴力行为，它们常表现出重复性的压力与创伤模式），同时与捕杀它们的野生犬科动物既存在对立关系又存在交配繁衍的复杂关联，犬只为我们思考非人类生物的本体论自主性提供了极具价值的研究契机。