Jakob von Uexküll: The Concept of Umwelt and its Potentials for an Anthropology Beyond the Human

Abstract

In his book A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, originally published in1934, Jakob von Uexküll argued that all living beings – no matter how simple or complex – had to be understood as subjects, and that the worlds they lived in were constituted through their specific ways of perceiving their Umwelten. This article focuses on an exploration of Uexküll’s argument set out in this classic text, considering its relevance for contemporary thought in anthropology that seeks to move beyond the human to embrace more-than-human world making and multispecies perspectives. Despite its largely positive reception in anthropology and other disciplines the paper also points to possible problems and limitations that Uexküll’s argument might pose for more-than-human anthropology by considering the ethnographic example of falconry practice in which humans and birds of prey, learn to communicate and cooperate in hunting.

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