Ombre Tarragnat

With the concept and framework of ethodiversity, I am trying to contribute to a more-than-human and more-than-neurological turn in neurodiversity studies.

Ethodiversity, short for ethological diversity, refers to the intra- and inter-specific variabilities and differences in behavioural or existential styles in (human and nonhuman) animals. Ethodiversity encompasses biological (including traditional ethological) needs, behavioural patterns, existential orientations, affects, as well as inter- and intraspecific relationality.

The term ‘ethodiversity’ parallels ‘biodiversity’ and ‘neurodiversity’. As a phenomenon, I suggest it contains neurodiversity without being limited to it. Autism, ADHD, Tourette syndrome, Down syndrome, dyspraxia, etc., are certainly neurological to some degree, but they are also somatic and behavioural. This is what ethodiversity targets. But ethodiversity is larger than that: it learns from the diversity of animal behaviours.

While I came to the concept of ethodiversity independently, it was coined by Adolfo Cordero-Rivera (2017) in the context of ecological and evolutionary sciences. Cordero-Rivera (2017) defines ethodiversity as

the variability of behavioral traits in the biological hierarchy, including the individual level (for example personality), the population level (for instance alternative reproductive strategies), and the ecosystem level (like contrasting behavioral patterns between species)’ (p. 2, italics in text).

For instance, ethodiversity includes the diversity of ‘human languages’ (Cordero-Rivera 2017, p. 4), migratory strategies (p. 3), and patterns of nocturnality and diurnality (p. 3).

With the concept of ethodiversity, I aim to reclaim the category of ‘behaviour’ in a non-behaviourist, non-reductionist, and non-mechanistic sense. Drawing on phenomenological and philosophical ethology, I understand behaviour to be a subjective response to a bodymind’s particular situation in the world, not a series of soulless mechanisms triggered by physicochemical reactions.

In this context, ethodivergence refers to ways of being and behaving that depart from the behavioural patterns (1) dominant in one’s species, (2) in one’s ecological and social milieu, and/or (3) imposed by ethonormativity – understood as the normative regulation, based on humanist principles, of the behaviours which can (or cannot) be accepted and expected in given animals (human or nonhuman) in specific contexts.

In a posthuman world filled with multispecies relationality, climate change, habitat destruction, intensive animal farming, and cyborg technoscience, our usual ways of being and behaving are troubled. For some nonhuman animals, this can prove particularly challenging, and ethodivergence is never far away. Just like neurodivergence, which is often but not always linked to disability, ethodivergence may enable unique forms of flourishing but can also lead to vulnerability or debilitation.

Moreover, ethodivergent beings often counter the humanist behavioural norms imposed or expected from one’s species or community in a given context. Consequently, they tend to face ethonormative violence: horses who refuse to obey their riders and depressed or fearful cats who resist being petted and may even attack humans are often abandoned or euthanised.

Ethodivergent politics aim to allow animals to experiment with their potentials and experience positive affects beyond ethonormativity. Neurodivergence and animality are often intersecting and co-constructed: the pathologisation of neurodivergent humans often relies on a form of dehumanisation that assimilates us to animals. Reclaiming our (hum)animality is key to fostering neurodivergent politics for all animals. In a world where ethonormativity meets neuronormativity, I would rather be a divergent animal than a typical human.

In the realm of the living, animals are the ones who express themselves through subjective behaviours that are diverse and change over time. This ontology of animality constitutes the background for my approach: ethodiversity and ethodivergence are fundamentally animal phenomena. But in turn, by producing new behaviours and existential styles, ethodivergence introduces difference in animality.

Reference

Cordero-Rivera, Adolfo. ‘Behavioral Diversity (Ethodiversity): A Neglected Level in the Study of Biodiversity.’ Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 5, art. 7 (Winter 2017).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2017.00007.

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^{This blog post is based on a forthcoming publication, ‘Biodiversity, Neurodiversity, Ethodiversity: Towards a More-Than-Human and More-Than-Neurological Turn in Neurodiversity Studies’ for Trace: Journal of Human-Animal Studies.}