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Based on a premise of possible rapprochement between the formulation of Jakob von Uexküll’s project and those of certain sociologists and anthropologists, this paper proposes a sociological reading of the work of the biologist in order to reexamine the place given to animals in the analysis of problems and controversies in which they participate. After a quick overview of the natural social sciences that use animals as research subjects, the paper focuses on an epistemological division that fails to do full justice to the animal subjects of biologists, and to the human subjects of socioanthropologists. The relationship of animals to the worlds around them is taken seriously, to define animals as actors that truly take part in the human and nonhuman collectives that are taking shape with and around them.