Human-animal relations

Human–animal relations is a relatively new interdisciplinary field of studies. Instead of studying humans and animals in isolation from one another, the focus is on understanding the connections between them. Having long documented the importance of nonhuman animals in the lives of the people it studies, sociocultural anthropology has much to contribute to this field. But the term “human–animal relations,” while a convenient shorthand, should be treated with caution. The entry identifies and discusses a number of problems associated with the term and its framing of the animal connection.