Sensing Life: Intersections of Animal and Sensory Histories

‘Life’, in its astonishing diversity, escapes a decisive definition. Frequently, one is offered a roll call of what life does rather than is—it can change, reproduce, adapt, and die. Very significantly, a living being is usually defined as something with the capacity to ‘respond’ to the fluctuating conditions of its wider environment and, by extension, the other living beings that inhabit those natural worlds. The nature of these physical responses is critical to the building of relationships both within and between species, and between creatures and their wider worlds. Significantly, however, new research, in the field of sensory ecology, reveals an extraordinary range of sensory abilities. These are ways of sensing—ways of perceiving and being—far beyond our own. In this chapter, we want to illustrate the significant potential of an animal-orientated sensory turn. We want to make the case that it is substantially through the senses—by thinking about what sensory experiences were and what they meant in the context of human-animal relations—that we can draw closer to the lived realities of past animals—and their people.