Horsing around: Animals, humans, sports, and platforms

Fernandes, Adalberto

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/28392

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Fernandes, Adalberto

Resumo(s)

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics Pentathlon incident, where German athlete Annika Schleu lost control of the horse Saint Boy, led to the termination of the show-jumping event and exposed the unstable relationships and definitions established between human and more-than-human actors. Analyzing comments on the three most-viewed YouTube videos on this case through Actor-Network Theory, we examine how responsibility is distributed between the two actors involved. Our findings indicate that riding is inherently relational and cannot be entirely dominated by a single agent. No ideal interaction point guarantees control, challenging human sovereignty over the more-thanhuman. Commentators place Schleu in an ambiguous position: she failed to control the more-thanhuman and, consequently, can no longer be treated humanely. This case reveals that distinctions between the human and the more-than-human are locally negotiated. Disruptions in these distinctions expose an enduring anthropocentric perspective, where failure to control the morethan-human disqualifies humans as fully human. The more-than-human thus emerges as a meta-normative guarantor, determining whether those who succeed or fail in control are granted human treatment.