Becoming-Animal in the Flesh: Expanding the Ethical Reach of Deleuze and Guattari’s Tenth Plateau

Abstract

Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of becoming-animal offers a mode of interaction that goes beyond the symbolic language and conceptual thought that are often used in the western philosophical tradition to circumscribe the limits and define the nature of an ethical engagement. They fail, however, to provide a robust account of how becoming may yield an ethical exchange between the human being and the animal other. In order for this process to generate such an outcome, it must be accompanied by commitment to and care for the animal. Primatologist Barbara Smuts brings this becoming to the flesh in ways that enable a committed, caring and collaborative ethical interaction between species.