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Anthropology in One Health

by Nicolas Lainé

Encyclopedia 2026, 6(7), 151; https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia6070151 - 8 Jul 2026

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Anthropology in One Health refers to the use of anthropological concepts, methods and field-based approaches to analyse health problems at the intersections of humans, animals, plants, microbes and environments. It examines how disease, risk, care, surveillance and prevention are understood, negotiated and organised in specific social and ecological settings. Its contribution is not simply to add a “social dimension” to biological problems already defined elsewhere. It also asks how a health problem is framed in the first place, whose observations are recognised as evidence, and how different ways of describing a situation shape the interventions that become possible. In this entry, One Health is approached primarily as a collaborative field of practice rather than as a single theoretical concept, bringing together ethnography, medical anthropology, political ecology, multispecies approaches, ethnobiology and studies of Indigenous and local knowledge. Full article

(This article belongs to the Collection Encyclopedia of One Health)

17 pages, 1136 KB

Open AccessArticle

“It’s Years of Walking, of Reading the Forest”: White Truffle Hunters’ Perception of Socio-Ecological Change in Langhe and Roero, NW Italy

by Mousaab Alrhmoun, Monica Zanaria, Federico Elia, Naji Sulaiman, Andrea Pieroni and Paolo Corvo

Sustainability 2025, 17(17), 8053; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17178053 - 7 Sep 2025

Viewed by 1897

Abstract

Truffle hunting in the Piedmontese landscapes of Northern Italy is not merely a foraging practice but a deeply embodied and multispecies relationship grounded in intergenerational knowledge, sensory attunement, and emotional connection to forest ecologies. This study draws on qualitative interviews with local truffle hunters (Trifulau) to examine how socio-ecological transformations driven by land privatization, vineyard expansion, monocultural hazelnut plantations, and tourism disrupt these traditional practices. Thematic analysis reveals five dimensions of transformation: ecological estrangement, dispossession and exclusion, erosion of knowledge transmission, commodification and spectacularizing, emotional and ontological loss. Hunters describe a loss of sensory orientation, access to ancestral commons, and a breakdown of the human–dog forest relational web, accompanied by feelings of grief, alienation, and identity erosion. We argue that these changes undermine ecological sustainability and threaten emotional, cultural, and epistemological sustainability. The findings call for a broadened understanding of sustainability, one that recognizes affective, multispecies, and place-based knowledge systems as vital to sustaining cultural landscapes. This study contributes to debates on rural transformation, non-material heritage, and the invisible costs of commodifying traditional ecological practices in globalizing economies. Full article

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18 pages, 831 KB

Open AccessArticle

The ‘Sanctuary Gap’: Reviewing the Research on Captive Wildlife Sanctuary Tourism

by Siobhan I. M. Speiran

Animals 2025, 15(4), 496; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15040496 - 10 Feb 2025

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5837

Abstract

Wildlife sanctuaries have gained popularity in recent years as settings for research into human–animal relations, captive wildlife tourism, and rehabilitation. While scholars from animal studies, ethics, geography, and ethnography disciplines have turned their attention to sanctuaries, there is still limited engagement from the fields of tourism, conservation, and animal welfare sciences. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this paper addresses the ‘sanctuary gap’ by offering a synthesis of the existing research related to wildlife sanctuary tourism. To this end, the paper suggests preliminary definitions for wildlife sanctuary tourism and wildlife sanctuary attractions, as well as a typology of sanctuaries along a spectrum from greenwashed to just. It aims to illuminate the shadowy presence of wildlife sanctuaries across multiple disciplines and identify areas for future research. The discussion considers how sanctuaries are well-suited to research on multispecies communities, as well as the conservation and welfare of wild animals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Importance of Sanctuaries and Rehabilitation Centres for Wildlife)

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26 pages, 87965 KB

Open AccessFeature PaperCommentary

Wicked Problems, Novel Solutions: Nepalese Elephant Tourism and Conservation

by Michelle Szydlowski

Animals 2024, 14(1), 171; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14010171 - 4 Jan 2024

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6500

Abstract

Endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) find themselves at the center of debates involving politics, land use, human–wildlife conflict, and environmental justice. The intensity of such debates has led scholars to label conservation challenges as wicked problems with profound implications on local and global practice. In elephant range states such as Nepal, these debates are made more complex through human ‘ownership’ of endangered individuals for use in tourism, worship, or co-work. Human perspectives on the ethics of using animals for tourism are changing, even in areas heavily reliant on the tourism industry for survival. These debates become inflamed when non-residents take on adversarial positions despite an acceptance of the ‘ownership’ or ‘use’ of endangered individuals among local communities. Novel approaches are needed if there is any hope of establishing a common ground upon which to build relationships which may benefit community members, international interests, and endangered individuals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Animal Welfare from a Cross-Cultural Perspective)

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13 pages, 2862 KB

Open AccessEssay

Deep Canine Topography: Captive-Zombies or Free-Flowing Relational Bodies?

by Darren O’Brien

Arts 2023, 12(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12020068 - 3 Apr 2023

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Abstract

For the last three years I have been making walks with my canine companion as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded fine art practice-based PhD at Nottingham Trent University, UK, which considers walking art as a shared human–canine practice. In this paper I reflect upon the doings of deep canine topography as a practice, with particular attention to the ethical questions raised. In the short meditation on the ethics of human animal artistic collaboration that follows, I will wander through the complex web of human–canine kinship, explored through art practice. Joining us on our walk through this tricky landscape are Rosi Braidotti, Jack Halberstam, Dona Haraway, Ron Broglio, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and a host of other actors whose concepts and theories provide a rich source of ethical discussion, which fellow artists might find helpful. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Art and Animals and the Ethical Position)

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31 pages, 316 KB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

More than Stories, More than Myths: Animal/Human/Nature(s) in Traditional Ecological Worldviews

by Amba J. Sepie

Humanities 2017, 6(4), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/h6040078 - 20 Oct 2017

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 33457

Abstract

Reason and rationality, upon which modern, westernized, societies have been founded, have powerfully characterized the nature of human relations with other species and with the natural world. However, countless indigenous and traditional worldviews tell of a very different reality in which humans, conceived of as instinctual and intuitive, are a part of a complex web of ecological relationships. Other species, elements of the natural world, and people are active participants in relations overflowing with communications, interactions sometimes recorded in ethnographies, or as ‘myths’ and ‘stories’. The present article draws upon a range of traditions to explore the biases which shape how indigenous and traditional life-ways are represented in westernized contexts; the phenomenon of receiving direct insight or intuitive knowing from more-than-human worlds; and the numerous valuable understandings regarding the nature of the human being, other species, and how to live well, that are offered by a deeper comprehension of different worldviews. I also argue that the various capacities for instinctual and intuitive knowledge which accompanies these life-ways are endemic to the human species yet overlooked, the correction of which might work to usefully recalibrate our ethical relations with each other, and with other life on earth. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Animal Narratology)

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