The Library
‘Imagine you are a dog’ : embodied learning in multi-species research
Tools
Tools
Tools
Fox, Rebekah, Charles, Nickie, Smith, Harriet and Miele, Mara (2023) ‘Imagine you are a dog’ : embodied learning in multi-species research. Cultural Geographies, 30 (3). pp. 429-452. doi:10.1177/14744740221102907 ISSN 1474-4740.
|
PDF
WRAP-‘Imagine-you-are-a-dog’-embodied-learning-multi-species-research-2022.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (2211Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740221102907
Abstract
Based upon a multi-species ethnography of companion dog training in the UK, this paper examines the training class as a site of inter-species communication through which dogs and their humans are mutually affected and transformed. We argue that dog training represents an important form of multi-species learning in which participants (human trainer, trainee and canine) shape one another, jointly if asymmetrically, through the performance of particular tasks and challenges. Successful training requires ‘attunement’ to the haptic and sensory experiences of another species and the creation of shared embodied languages through which relationships of trust and reciprocity are formed. Responding to calls for less human-centred methods we examine the possibilities of visual and ethnographic methods for capturing the ‘animal’s point of view’ and explore how deep ethnographic involvement of the researcher’s own body can draw attention to the everyday complexities of embodied inter-species communication. We consider the importance of our own embodied learning in decentring the human in the research process, engendering a corporeal understanding of the multi-sensory nature of inter-species interaction and transforming ourselves in the process. Through the use of ethnographic vignettes, photos and video stills we highlight the importance of body language, sound, touch, smell and training atmospheres in the creation of shared knowledges. In doing so we explore the possibilities of such methods for evoking the affective dimensions of human-canine interactions and attending to the complex and multiple actors and sensibilities which comprise multi-species training relationships.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology Q Science > QL Zoology S Agriculture > SF Animal culture |
||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology | ||||||
| SWORD Depositor: | Library Publications Router | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Dogs -- Training , Human-animal relationships, Dogs -- Effect of human beings on, Human-animal communication, Psychology, Comparative | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Cultural Geographies | ||||||
| Publisher: | Sage Publications Ltd. | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1474-4740 | ||||||
| Official Date: | July 2023 | ||||||
| Dates: |
|
||||||
| Volume: | 30 | ||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 429-452 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1177/14744740221102907 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 22 November 2022 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 22 November 2022 | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
|
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
