Near Human - Border Zones of Species, Life, and Belonging (Svendsen Mette N.)(Paperback / softback)

In the animal facility, fragile piglets substitute for humans who cannot be experimented on. In the neonatal intensive care unit, extremely premature infants prompt questions about whether they are too fragile to save or, if they survive, whether they will go on to lead a life of grave disability. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork carried out on farms, in animal-based experimental science labs, and in hospitals, Mette N. Svendsen redirects the question of "what it means" to be human to "what it takes" to be human and to forge a nation. The near humanness of preterm infants and research piglets becomes an avenue to unravel how neonatal life is imagined, authenticated, extended, or eroded, and how societal belonging is evaluated, confirmed, or ended when beings are at the margins of life and death. This courageous multi-sited and multi-species approach cracks open the complex ethical
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