Fra fænomenologi til det mere end menneskelige: Etnografiske refleksioner om at finde hjem med dyr

In Denmark, especially since the 1980s, it is generally believed that something akin to social export is taking place, pushing socioeconomically marginalized people from larger cities to rural areas. The push comes from the shape of housing- and labor structures, which make it difficult for people with limited financial resources to uphold a living in the city, or from specific administrative practices in urban municipalities. The limited research existing within this field tends to be preoccupied with this migration as an expression of economic rationalities. There are, however, indications that several other circumstances play a role when socioeconomically vulnerable people move and settle in new places, not least animals, often referred to as pets. When I, in the context of a research project exploring migration to a Danish rural area, conducted qualitative interviews with newcomers, pets constantly appeared, both in memories and imaginings of home and in actual practices of doing home. While this led my attention toward the significance of animals and led me in the direction of an inter-species perspective, it did not substantially change my methodological approach, which remained primarily phenomenologically inspired. In this essay, I, partly reflexively and partly speculatively, explore how I ethnographically could have engaged migration and home as an interspecies phenomenon. Moreover, I sketch out the kinds of political and ethical questions implied by such a more-than-human approach. The essay is inspired by interspecies, posthuman perspectives, especially by Donna Haraway.