ABSTRACT
How can research methods re-sensitise us to the animal presence in our more-than-human world? In this chapter, the author argues that body mapping, a method in which human participants visually depict their bodies-in-relation to others, can be a useful addition to the human-animal methodological toolkit. Through engaging with both affective and material realms, body mapping probes the visceral, embodied relationships we have with animals (that we eat). Drawing on fieldwork with meat-eating consumers in Austria, the chapter make the case that body mapping creates research opportunities to explore, and challenge, the sensory realm of our human-animal worlds. The chapter first introduces the de- and re-sensitisation of considering animal bodies in meat consumption practices. Then, the author delves into particular ways of theorising the body that set the stage for bodies as humanimalian – a fluid, porous entity of intersecting symbolic and material human-animal presence. Next, she provides a detailed explanation of both how to conduct body mapping research and how to analyse body mapped data. Finally, the chapter concludes with the relevance of body mapping for other areas of human-animal scholarship, emphasising that a focus on the visceral can eschew the representational limits of much human-animal research.
