This paper seeks to contribute to a dialogue on new realisms by critically asking how “real” the body is and what makes it “real”. Taking a Merleau Pontian approach (cf. e.g. Abram, 1997) it presents a short video of human-animal encounters that draws attention to learning in the realm of cross-species intersubjectivities, agencies and entanglements. It investigates practices of knowing and morality, i.e. the development of an “interspecies etiquette” (Warentkin, 2010) not only through a recognition of the animal as a subject but also – and more radically - through a shift in the unit of analysis as for example Barad’s “agential intra-action” (2003) suggests. The body is essential for sharing meaning, intention and attention; i.e. consciousness as “knowing and doing together”. However, does the body provide us with a more real and moral approach than cognition and emotions? What learning processes does that imply? The research uses participant videography (Svendler Nielsen, 2012) to make the animals visible as agents co-constructing the situation and to capture the embodied and inter-relational aspects of learning. The performative and phenomenologically inspired method is a knowledge creating practice in which the researcher’s body has a wider angle than the camera and can resonate with and communicate the others’ experiences more directly—"body to body."

Abram, David (1997) The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Vintage Barad, Karen (2003) Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter. In: Signs, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 801-831 Svendler Nielsen, Charlotte (2012) Looking for Children's Experiences in Movement: The Role of the Body in "Videographic Participation", In: Forum Qualitative Social Research Volume 13, No. 3, Art. 18 Warentkin, T. (2010) Interspecies Etiquette. An Ethics of Paying Attention to Animals. In: Ethics & the Environment, 15(1), pp 101-121