Do We Truly Know, Or Can We Only Know the Gist?

We are transitioning from our theories of the Agent/cy paradox and moving over to talking about Anti/Signification. But before we start talking about that, I want to ask a hard question that ties into Ecoporn in a way:

"Can a human being truly be the agent of 'animal agency'?" 

I borrowed the term animal agency from Prof. Graban. I think the perplexity of the term can be explained by referring to Karlyn Kohrs Campbell's definition of agency: "the capacity to act, that is, to have the competence to speak or write in a way that will be recognized or heeded by others in one's community" (Campbell 3). I know humans do not interact with animals in the same way as they do with other humans, but I'm not merely hinting at that fact when I ask my initial question. I'm more concerned with our ability (or inability) to truly represent animal behavior via experimentation, observation, and writing (or any text).

Just by being present in the same area as a wild animal, humans disrupt the natural behavior of  said animal, even if it is only subtle. Maybe we can only observe animals in terms of how they react to certain situations while we are there. But we have cameras! If we talk about video observations, as long as the animals do not know the camera is there, are we not catching them in their normal environments? But the question then is:

"What do we actually observe?"

When humans look at other animals, they explain what they see in "human terms," because animals do not have any terms we can decipher (and I am not trying to say animals definitely have their own terms to "talk" amongst themselves; I am just putting things in human terms). If they did, then they would somehow be grouped into our discourse community. But they are not. 

If an animal is in a zoo, we observe them as they act according to the constraints we have placed upon them (cages, regular playtime, regular feeding, absence of predators, absence of prey, etc.). They do not act the same. 

Consider this article about hyenas: 

< http://phys.org/news/2013-01-captive-hyenas-outfox-wild-relatives.html >. 

For a more in-depth reading:

 < http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347212005131 >.

Both readings show how testing animals in captivity shows different results than testing animals in the wild. I'm taking their arguments and proposing one of my own. By placing puzzle boxes, some in the wild and some in captivity, it is possible to see how hyenas react in terms of us being there, but how are we to truly figure out how they operate in the wild without us being there. The cameras seem like a good idea, but what is it that we see? Can we actually get into their communities—their agencies? Or are they forever a mystery? This seems preposterous, but it brings something else to the light:

"Can one human actually fully understand another human?"

Truthfully, I think I cannot 100% know what you, the reader, is thinking while you are reading this blog post, and I do not expect you to 100% know what information I am trying to convey while creating this blog post. But I think you can at least get the gist, or come up with things on your own by reading it. I think that's how the "evolution of rhetoric" works. We work off of other people's understandings to create our own, even if we might not ever completely understand what the other people are trying to say. The same goes for animals (in a sense). We will never completely understand how animals behave in the true wild or why they behave the way they do—even in captivity. But I think we can get a sort of "gist" of how they live. 

Works Cited:

Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. “Agency: Promiscuous and Protean.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 2.1 (2005): 1-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1479142042000332134

"Captive hyenas outfox wild relatives." Phys.org. 7 Jan. 2013. Web. 23 Sept. 2013. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-captive-hyenas-outfox-wild-relatives.html

Benson-Amram, Sarah, Mary L. Weldele, and Kay E. Holekamp. "A comparison of innovative problem-solving abilities between wild and captive spotted hyaenas, Crocuta crocuta." Animal Behaviour (2012): n. pag. Web. 23 Sept. 2013. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347212005131