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.