[...]eresting research: looking at the conditions that allow beings to become interesting


{ how scientists made their animals agents = how scientists created the conditions for certain responses with respect to what was being asked of the animals }--Despret--> how these changing animals *became real* by way of the very *test of transformation* that had been proposed to them (~ how they were involved in the “process of verification”) --> *to understand the system of truth that was ay the heart of these tests* (=/= to produce an umpteenth critical analysis of “representation” @Pierre)
==> you are under the same constraints as those in whom you had placed your confidence

@Sina: do not construct knowledge about your mother behind her back! --> getting to know what matters (to them, to her) ==> allows transformations to occur
-i usually did both (as mentor in apass), construct knowledge behind people's back [psychosis] & getting to know what matters to them [paranoia]

(Despret discovered) one (unignorable) thing that mattered to scientists was: how animals take an active part in the knowledge that is produced about them


(why working on ajayeb bestiary involves becoming interested in sciences:) you work on animals --immediately--> you are marking on scientists

i remember the way i anticipated where a pigeon, a cat, spider, or ants, would make a home, a niche, in my childhood house...
the difference between ‘what i imagined’ & ‘where the nest actually appeared’ ==> made the world far more interesting
--> looking at the perception of animals (when you are child)


inventive and remarkable birds
happiness of sheep
sadness of captive wolves in a park in the Lorraine --> *not because they were captive but because captivity had transformed them into stupid and cruel beings*

[it is good to be able to say that] certain scientists not only do “bad science” (which remains a way of keeping distance) but that they do “science badly”


creatures that happened to be animals
creatures that happened to be ghosts
creatures that happened to be ...


(the influence of) Anglo-Saxon animal studies [on me]


(in Despretian way) learning to think from love


(the bad) fable of coming out of the closet
there is no closet. there are transformations.
falling from a horse, on a path that no longer leads to Damascus

(the story of) Saul does not answer God; he politely asks him to wait two minutes while he comforts his horse. let God wait; other things matter <--Despret-- this is where true conversation takes place

(a philosophy, or thought) one of: obligation =/= distance
(Stengers:) obligation =/= requirements -->{*a distinction that is to be made*, to be created, to be invented, not acknowledged as already manifest in the state of things}
obligation (is much more demanding than) =/= right
(Sina:) obligation =/= commitment
[*]being obligatet = agreeing to expose oneself to failure, refusing to construct the words of order that would protect oneself from the requirements of the activity
{not all activities arise from obligations = not all activities put themselves at risk, not all activities make an effort to present themselves politically}


Haraway's writing technique: a remedy for indifference and contempt --> *becoming attached to the multiple threads that make up the fabric of the world*

(Despret obligated to hear) the blackbird sang as if the world itself depended on its song --and-->
*the importance of things came to dwell in its voice*
*the blackbird made importance exist in another way*
*importance became incorporated in the world*

and this importance rises like a question [a question that comes after “what matters for..."] --Despret--> how can i now write in such a way as to be worthy of what matters, with a similar insistence, for another being? (my question in Cinderella diaries)

...................................

my history (of continuous interest, or what created the next “-->”):
iran / visual arts --> germany / lecture and performance --> research / heritage study --> case / ajayeb bestiary --> epistemology / animal --> science / anthropology

...................................

home funerals put into practice an important dimensino of the lives lived by the deceased --> participates actiively in the instauration of their existence
-instauration: [re-storying] restoring, participating in a transformation that leads to a certain existence = to more existence, in the case of the deceased: both a biographical supplement and the accomplishment of an existence in another realm of reality ==Souriau==> brilliance of reality (of the dead): regards of the existence of the deceased, provided we agree on the right regime of reality that can be granted to them --> (envisioning definition of the mode of existence)==enable==> to account for what the deceased do and what they have others do ==> describe how they interfere in the lives of the living --✕--> (we avoid the trap of) the tradition that captures and generally freezes the problem, separating the ways of being into two categories: “physical existence =/= psychological existence” ==> the deceased = non-existence, fantasy, belief, hallucinations... (<-- bad for ajayeb)

vigil
the deceased retain thier full relatinoal capacity
the midwives stress that it is important to carry on talking to them, with love, soflty, carefully choosing one's words...
death --> passage --> a medico-scientifice time frame in which the living have work to do (=/= the work of mourning)
body remains vibrant matter <== communication remains possible

taking care of events through their affects

(Despret asks) what do we know about what the body continues to feel and causes the person to feel once it has stopped breathing?


death midwives
share the conviction that death is not a matter of all or nothing
[people] can still talk to those who remain through memories or thoughts that arise in their presence
signs --> remain open to the possibility of being understood differently

death affects the face muscles in such a way that it produces a post-mortem smile (لبخند شهید) --> *smile (that comforts) ==> ‘deceased: a particularly robust being’ that unifies two ways of being:
1. he becomes an expressive relational being
2. his body becomes matter for expressions

midwife ==> a possibility in the sense of “or else, also” (=/= “either or”), in the valuable grammatical register of conjuctions: and, and, and...


these expressive modes that require *only recipients*, [=/= explanation: to give the phenomenon its scientific imprimatur] they just call for one to take into account
-this is tricky if you are in Iran's shia martyrdom culture or in the presense of Western authoritative sensual teacher. can there be a deliberate coexistence [an additive epistemological engagement --> *affirmation of the possibility that multiple and contradictory versions coexist*] of (the current enchanted version:) لبخند شهید and (the comming disenchanted version:) secular imprimatur in present iran?]

the dead body is both *biological & sacred*, object & subject, disenchanted & enchanted

disjunctive and controversial (یا “or else”) --(replaced by)--> “and” that challenge medical epistemology (each version “adds” to the current versoin rather than erase it)
•the fact that a smile can be a “natural” phenomenon does not prevent him from having wanted to comfort his family
•the “and” introduces a non-polemical challenge (an *open challenge* that opens up to other narratives) in terms of “there is always something else" = a commitment (that transforms ways of thinking and ways of feeling) [=/= Holakouee's روشنگری enlightened secularism]

the deceased:
•they invite themselves into dreams
•****they make presence of presence felt**** --> through stratagem (ruse of genre, skill in devising plans or schemes)
•they play on coincidences --> (as far as they are connected) anything can be used to make a sign <== **they are opportunists of enigma**
•they thwart all attempts to give meaning to the action
•they do have regularity ==> (it is possible to constitute) *a science of the deceased* [that fits them, one that describe them, that can interpret in the sense of guiding a reply to what they want or request] -->[...]