Multispecies Entanglements in the Gulf: Reflections on Phenomenology, Object-Oriented Ontology, and the Nature of Cognition

This paper is a product of qualitative, ethnographic fieldwork which looked at interactions between Emirati people and camels. Both in traditional Bedu contexts and among contemporary breeders/riders/racers in the Arabian Gulf, camels have been useful to people as an economic resource or symbolic tool, but they have also been agents creating paths for human cultural activity. They are the lens through which people observe their society, yet they are also perceived as beings with lifeworlds of their own. In a humanizing effort they can represent what is inherently cultural, but they can also be seen as separate beings that inform people's worldviews. Recognizing animals' agency, observing the obliteration of subject-object boundaries in animal-centric cultures requires fundamental ontological revisions. This paper aims to propose a paradigm useful for multispecies ethnography studies, rooted in exploring entanglements between anthropological phenomenology and object-oriented ontology. Appreciating the central roles of experience, embodiment, and senses in human connections with animals make phenomenology a potent analytical framework for such studies. Ontologically speaking, the essence of interactions between camels and their Emirati aficionados can represent the nature of people's being-in-the-world, shaping their mental universe and cognitive processes. The main contributions of the research include using empirical evidence to address some of the recurring criticisms of object-oriented ontology and positioning these analyses within the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council countries) context, which has rarely been done before.