O que é que cavalo sabe’ : um estudo antropológico sobre o vínculo animal-humano na equoterapia
Abstract
From an anthropological perspective, this research examines the relationships between people and
horses in the “equine therapy”, a health treatment held, among other venues, at an Equine Center in
São Carlos city, São Paulo (Brazil). In this ethnographic account, the goal is to discuss the role that
horses play within this therapeutic which, according to Ande Brasil (2010), is intended to help with
the “biopsychosocial development of people with disability issues and/or special needs”. I focus on
the therapeutic sessions; in these, the praticantes (the native term, used in reference to the people
addressed by this therapy, and who are, in majority, called specials), their parents, therapists, and
auxiliary-guides connect to themselves and to the horses in distinct ways. By following these actors
in their relational ways of communicating and acting, the body and its embodied dispositions
emerge as the common axis at negotiating certain types of contact, command, discipline, and
control. In this set, I examine the way in which the relationships between humans and animals, from
one side, and the relationships between people with and without disability, from another side, when
joined, might shake the notions of “human” and “animal” in their mutual impacts. It is expected that
the ethnographic themes presented here may contribute to the transpecies socialities debate.