Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are experimenting with novel ways of engaging with worlds around us. Passionate immersion in the lives of fungi, microorganisms, animals, and plants is opening up new understandings, relationships, and accountabilities. This introduction to the special issue offers an overview of the emerging field of multispecies studies. Unsettling given notions of species, it explores a broad terrain of possible modes of classifying, categorizing, and paying attention to the diverse ways of life that constitute worlds. From detailed attention to particular entities, a multiplicity of possible connection and understanding opens up: species are always multiple, multiplying their forms and associations. It is this coming together of questions of kinds and their multiplicities that characterizes multispecies studies. A range of approaches to knowing and understanding others-modes of immersion-ground and guide this research: engagements and collaborations with scientists, farmers, hunters, indigenous peoples, activists, and artists are catalyzing new forms of ethnographic and ethological inquiry. This article also explores the broader theoretical context of multispecies studies, asking what is at stake-epistemologically, politically, ethically-in learning to be attentive to diverse ways of life. Are all lively entities biological, or might a tornado, a stone, or a volcano be amenable to similar forms of immersion? What does it mean to live with others in entangled worlds of contingency and uncertainty? More fundamentally, how can we do the work of inhabiting and coconstituting worlds well? In taking up these questions, this article explores the cultivation of "arts of attentiveness": modes of both paying attention to others and crafting meaningful response.

中文翻译：

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多物种研究

人文和社会科学领域的学者正在尝试以新颖的方式与周围世界互动。热情地沉浸在真菌，微生物，动物和植物的生活中，正在开拓新的认识，关系和责任感。本期特刊的简介概述了新兴的多物种研究领域。它使给定的物种概念感到不安，它探索了可能的分类，分类和关注构成世界的多种生活方式的广泛模式。从详细的关注到特定的实体，打开了多种可能的联系和理解：物种总是多种多样的，它们的形式和关联不断增加。正是各种问题及其多重性共同构成了多物种研究的特征。一系列了解和理解他人的方法-沉浸式模式并指导这项研究：与科学家，农民，猎人，土著人民，活动家和艺术家的接触与合作正在催生新的民族志和民族学探究形式。本文还探讨了多物种研究的更广阔的理论背景，询问在学习认识多种生活方式方面在认识论，政治，伦理上的利害关系。所有活泼的实体都是生物的吗，或者龙卷风，石头或火山是否适合类似的浸没形式？与其他人一起生活在偶然性和不确定性的纠缠世界中意味着什么？从根本上说，我们如何才能很好地进行世界的居住和构成工作？在解决这些问题时，