ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 analyzes the documentary film Sanctuary as a case study in nonhuman human relationships. The chapter argues that video ethnography offers an aesthetic approach to crafting and evoking knowledge that pushes the boundaries of scholarship into sensuous realms that go beyond words. In the case of Sanctuary the theme of healing from neglect and harm is mediated through the figure of the donkey as a beast that has iconic standing as an animal typically subjected to hard labour and to abuse. It calls into question taken-for-granted notions of what “counts” as scholarship, thereby expanding methodological and epistemological boundaries, and in the case of Sanctuary it does so beyond the human subject.
