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This work constitutes an approach to hunting management in Uruguay. We have focused on wild boar hunting, the most widespread form of recreational hunting in this country. We explored the connections and discrepancies between the different actors based on a qualitative study conducted with conservationists, animal rights groups, nature managers, and hunters. The informality of hunting and the lack of population studies on wildlife were the main concerns raised while hunting with dogs was the most controversial issue. These results allowed us to propose some potential management actions to improve hunting management: issuing a hunting license, regulating hunting with dogs, developing collaborative wildlife monitoring, promoting new technologies within the framework of ethical hunting, and developing a realistic and effective poaching control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The benefits of pet companionship – and of dog walking in particular – has been long acknowledged across academic disciplines. Much of the research values – even romanticizes – it as mutually beneficial, catalysing both human sociability and canine well-being. However, walking a dog displaying aggressive or other unwanted behaviour – dogs that fall short of expectations – severely undermines the virtues of pet companionship, extracting a considerable social and emotional toll for those seeking greater inter-species commonality. Drawing on empirical work on walking practices and the author's autoethnographic account, the paper solicits interpretations more attuned to the complexities of our cohabited socio-spatial worlds, particularly against contexts of discordance. The research demonstrates how these circumstances influence relationships with humans, often forcing dogs and their owners into liminal and contested socio-spatial existences, though also occasionally revealing exploratory opportunities. The dog walk therefore emerges as an activity that is heavily negotiated and contingent. Ultimately, the quest to 'make space' for seemingly transgressive dogs demonstrates the necessity and potentiality for a trans-species co-habitation that is more sensitive to the spectrum of animals that share our more than human worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One amongst many of the defining characteristics of so-called 'late stage' capitalism are human-animal relationships that have become acrimonious, hostile, or even monstrous in nature. A foundational premise of monster theory, and one that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's seminal 1996 edited collection of the same name suggests, is that the construction of the monster in popular culture is fraught with the boundaries that constitute the society that has spawned them; the monstrous body "exists only to be read" (p. 4). Bringing together the theoretical insights of the Marxist theory of reification, critical animal studies, and monster theory, this article examines the ways in which cinematic depictions of gigantic monstrosity can inform our theorizing of multispecies relationships under capitalism. Specifically, I explore how the tensions between capital and human-animal relationships serve to construct and constitute the multiform monster, Jean Jacket, in Jordan Peele's 2022 film Nope. Through an examination of the multispecies relationalities that the film portrays, I argue that the figure of Jean Jacket is a monstrous culmination of the reified and therefore, necessarily deferred nature of human-animal relationships under capital. However, Nope's conclusion alerts us to the radical dereifying potential of multispecies bonds of care and embodied knowledge; systems of resistance that can be forged even within our current capitalist ruins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how sociologists of religion can respond to 'the animal turn' in studies of lived religion and nonreligion. We begin by considering how sociology has neglected the place of non-human animals and the 'more than human' in social life. We then turn to the sociology of religion, where animals have often been devalued or ignored as irrelevant to understanding religion in society. We argue that it is necessary to consider the ways in which human activities are shaped by non-human animals. This does not mean that animals should be thought of as nonreligious or religious. We contend that the failure to incorporate non-human animals in sociological considerations of religion and nonreligion replicates a hierarchical model, which sees human life as above or higher than non-human life and calls our attention to the place of sociological research amid the climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This qualitative study explores human–dog relationships with a focus on communication dynamics. Twelve human–dog dyads were analyzed using narrative interviews and cooperative tasks. The results suggest that human expectations shape interactions, transforming dog ownership into a family-like role. Effective communication relies on both verbal and non-verbal cues. Empathy is critical for deeper emotional connections. This study highlights that compatibility between humans and dogs has a significant impact on relationship satisfaction. This exploratory study examines the complex dynamics of human–dog relationships and their impact on interspecies communication. Twelve human–dog dyads were studied using narrative interviews to explore how people perceive their relationships with their dogs. In addition, the dyads engaged in a cooperative task to observe interaction dynamics during everyday activities. This study shows that individual expectations frame interactions and that traditional notions of dog ownership are evolving into more family-like relationships. Effective communication relies on a nuanced mix of verbal and non-verbal cues, with empathy emerging as a fundamental element guiding these interactions. Our findings underline the profound influence of human expectations, knowledge and empathy on communication with dogs. They also highlight the critical role of compatibility between human and dog dyads, and emphasize that such compatibility is a key determinant of satisfaction in interspecies relationships. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how human factors modulate communication and satisfaction in human–animal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifshin et al. found that death primes increased support for killing animals, suggesting that the killing of animals serves a terror management function. The present research adds to this by suggesting that protecting animals can also serve a terror management function when people see such behaviors as culturally valuable. In three studies (N = 765), environmental contingent self-worth (ECSW) moderated the effect of death primes on attitudes toward animals. Attitudes toward animals also mediated the effect of a death prime on increased power-based invulnerability for those with low ECSW and decreased power-based invulnerability for those with high ECSW (Study 3). Finally, we found little support that death primes influenced beliefs regarding human–animal superiority (Study 1 and 2) or similarity (Study 2). Our findings therefore provide partial support for past terror management research and further the understanding regarding how to promote more benevolent human–animal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork and collected oral histories in 2019 in the Lofoten islands, as well as on archival research. I investigate the complex creation of kinship networks between humans and skrei in the Lofoten islands. I argue that the constant struggle to survive for both fish and fishermen embedded in larger capitalist ecologies of exploitation creates a symbolic shared substance between fish and fishermen, which, despite the often-unequal antagonistic nature of their relationships, allows us to rethink of definitions of kinship between humans and nonhuman others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the case for the value of qualitative methods in advancing our understanding of human-animal relations and multispecies relations in psychology, introducing the first special issue of a journal dedicated to qualitative psychology and the field of human-animal studies. It offers a thematic summary of the articles organized into four sections. Each section includes a reflection on the methods adopted in the context of broader developments in human-animal studies. To do so, Gorman’s conceptualisation of mutualistic, parasitic, mutualist and commensal relations is utilised, as a basis for deciding whether the methods adopted allow us to consider ‘who benefits and how’ from the human-animal and multispecies relationships scrutinised in this issue. Particularly in showcasing qualitative methods that centre the experience and agency of animals where they have traditionally been discounted, it is concluded that this special issue constitutes a significant moment in the development of psychology as a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing impetus for social work to move beyond a human-centric social justice orientation to include the consideration of animals. Social work programs in Australia are currently not required to include content related to animals within the curricula and little is known about the extent to which this content is currently being taught in Australia. The aim of this study was to explore how consideration of human–animal relations has been incorporated into Australian social work programs. Fifteen social work educators were surveyed with three of these participants also undertaking semistructured interviews. The findings revealed that where animal-related content was included it predominantly took an "instrumental" or "anthropocentric" focus related solely to human wellbeing. Exceptions to this focus were found to exist within some ethics and theory units under topics such as "green social work". Participants report barriers to including such content citing factors related to challenges within the university context and the perceived relative importance of other topics within a crowded social work curriculum. Despite an upsurge in interest in animal-related content reflected in the literature and a broader shift in societal attitudes towards animals, the findings of this small study indicate that Australian social work curriculum currently does not reflect this increasing interest. As a social justice–oriented profession social work has an ethical responsibility to expand its focus to include consideration of human–animal relations within the Australian social work curriculum. There is evidence that inclusion of content related to animals is limited and is often a reflection of the educator's commitment and passion for the topic rather than curriculum priorities or requirements. Further research is needed to gain a better understanding of the extent to which human–animal relations content is included within Australian social work curriculum and what barriers may exist to its inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choreographed encounters with death in Copenhagen Zoo, such as school and public dissections, emphasize the importance of touch and are underpinned by the moral imperative to understand the nature of life and death. Such encounters are framed by zoo educators as contributing to a deeper environmental awareness. Taking the role of dead animals in the educational activities of Copenhagen Zoo as the focus, this article examines the underpinning ideology of choreographed encounters with animal death through participant observation of school and public dissections and carcass feeding, in addition to semi-structured open interviews with educational staff. Advancing literature on the pedagogy of death and the role of animals in education, this analysis illustrates how anthropocentric conceptualizations of nature as a resource to be exploited, protected, and saved infuse the pedagogy of dissection. Taking the stickiness of these encounters seriously, a posthuman lens reveals the problematic attachments and violent detachments that touching animal flesh in out-of-school contexts produces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: While exploring the information experience within multispecies families, the subjective nature of humans and non-human entities, living beings and non-living objects becomes evident. This paper aims to reveal the underlying significance of information within socio-physical living environments shared among humans, cats and dogs as companions. Design/methodology/approach: Gaining inspiration from the information experience approach and posthumanism, this is a phenomenological paper. Empirical material related to lived experiences of participating families were gathered through multispecies ethnography methods, followed by phenomenological reflections. The paper has been written based on excerpt-commentary-units and the inclusion of videos and images as an approach to convey the richness of the lived experiences and multiple perspectives. Findings: Findings are organised into three main sections, each capturing lived experiences of information and its utilization from various frames. The paper shows how living beings, both human and animal, use their physical, sensual and moving bodies to acquire and convey information to and from each other. Moving beyond the living beings, the study discusses how non-living objects in the physical environment of a multispecies family also shape information. Material objects, spatial locations and even plants became sources of information for the family members. Lastly, the paper delves into the social environment of the family, where all members, human and animal, are actively shaped by information within their social interactions and companionship. Originality/value: Considering information distributed across species and material objects in a shared, more-than-human environment, the article suggests implications for an information experience approach. It emphasizes how information shapes the in-between humans, animals and their environment, highlighting their reliance on each other for understanding and living a good shared life. There is a need for future research to explore the information experience within the internal subjective minds of members of multispecies families, bridging the gap in the understanding of these external information and their internal information processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While visual methods have been employed in research regarding human‐animal relationships and entanglements, the possible benefits of utilizing drawing elicitation have not been explored to date. Our study utilizes drawing elicitation with Hmong and Mien (Yao) ethnic minority farmers in the northern Vietnamese borderlands. We aim to investigate human‐animal relationships within these communities, considering their longstanding socio‐economic and spiritual entanglements with a number of domesticated animals. Simultaneously, we aim to assess the benefits and drawbacks of employing drawing elicitation in the context of more‐than‐human research in the Global South. Through the drawing exercises, participants not only conveyed important insights into human‐animal entanglements within these rural uplands, resulting in nuanced and at times highly emotive drawings, but they also provided reflections on the drawing activity itself. Despite challenges faced in encouraging drawing within a semiliterate population, our findings, guided by participant feedback, reveal numerous possibilities for employing this approach in more‐than‐human research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Riding became a widespread leisure activity for children in Sweden and Finland during the post-war decades through the emergence of riding schools. Drawing on books and comics published in Sweden and Finland from the 1960s to the present, together with interviews and observations at contemporary Swedish riding schools, we approach this development with a geographical, historical and sociological focus. We ask how children's equestrian cultures were formed within the spaces of horse yards, especially riding schools, and how caring well was understood and negotiated through different types of knowledge and the idea and practice of horse ownership. As we show in the analysis, despite the increase of written knowledge about horses and their care, situated and relational knowledges based on interspecies interaction prevailed in children's equestrian cultural spheres in which children had a chance to interact with animals and care for them outside the everyday spaces of family and school. In these cultures of interspecies care, ideas of horse ownership carried expectations of continuity where the child–horse relationship was secured and could develop. The entry to these spatial cultures was through rites of passage characterised by embodied interaction and hands-on care, where children learned to care for animals well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adds to an evolving literature arguing for revised human-animal positions in social thought. It elaborates on how writings fundamental to the modern human world ought to be problematized for their anthropocentric assumptions. It offers a way forward for approaching such “de-anthropocentrification” methodologically, and for the social sciences to thereby adjust their impact for sustainable futures. An implicit debate about the applicability of social constructionist theory to nonhuman animals provides an exemplary case to highlight the need for this turn in social thought. The article thus argues for the grand theory of social constructionism being applicable to a wide range of nonhuman animals too, and how this could have extensive consequences for embedding human abilities and experiences in a wider cosmos of social life and its unfolding.

The past 30 years have seen the steady development of the geographic subfield of animal geographies through an ongoing expansion of research methods, theoretical concepts, and topical and species focus. In 2021, we undertook the first international survey of the subfield with two goals: to survey practitioners about their work and to determine interest in establishing an international community. In this article we share the results of what 141 respondents from 24 countries self-reported in the areas of participant demographics, definitions of animal geographies, interest in an international community, and research as related to field sites, species, methods, and future themes. Our results indicate that a gap in intra and inter-cultural understandings of what constitutes animal geographies and a lack of an organized global structure are indeed potential limits to the subfield’s capacities to continue to grow; however, we found that a focus on capacity-building and cross-cultural facilitation could provide a pathway to more international diffusion of animal geographies-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Human–animal relations during Prehistory are an increasingly discussed issue among scholars. Cervids are a symbolically prominent species among hunter–gatherers but are also of relevance to pastoralists. We present a synthesis of available data regarding human–deer relations in Portuguese Late Prehistory. This is achieved by examining deer abundance in subsistence, together with their inclusion in social practices such as food-sharing and their involvement in structured depositions in both funerary and non-funerary contexts. Additionally, the study investigates the utilization of deer remains for the creation of artifacts and their depiction in pottery decoration, figures, and rock art. The dynamics of deer prevalence in subsistence have varied diachronically and synchronically in the periods and areas under study. Although the reasons and meanings for this behavior continue to be discussed, their sociocultural and ideological relevance seems to have persisted in early agropastoral and metallurgical societies, even as they undergo change. Human–animal relations have been a fruitful research topic worldwide. The importance of deer in hunter–gatherer societies is undeniable, with cervids being commonly found in archaeological and past artistic records, with a notable amount of information recovered in the Iberian Peninsula. This relevance continues during Late Prehistory, but the attempt to discuss cervids under broader perspectives and based on different types of data is not as common. We intend to approach human–deer relations in Central and Southern Portuguese Late Prehistory by considering the zooarchaeological records, both deer abundance in faunal spectra and their presence in "meaningful" assemblages and structured depositions, as well as the use of deer and deer body parts in other socio–cultural and ideological practices. The synthesis of available data shows that human–deer relations changed through time and space, with different abundances related to hunting depending on chronology and geography. The use of deer or their body parts as a resource of symbolic nature also varied, being included in food-sharing events, offerings, structured depositions, and graphic representations. Changeability is part of the different relationships, ontologies, and cosmogonies that humans and deer developed in the Late Prehistoric relational world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an introduction to a special issue of the journal Sociologia Ruralis titled "Privilege, vulnerability and care: Interspecies dynamics in rural landscapes." The issue explores the relationships between humans and animals in rural areas, focusing on topics such as animal rights, animal welfare, and the role of animals in agriculture and leisure activities. The articles in the issue draw on various theoretical perspectives and research methodologies to examine the complex dynamics of these relationships. The introduction provides an overview of the themes and contributions of the articles in the special issue. [Extracted from the article]

One of the most crucial issues in the study of human–animal relations is the power of humans over animal death and how it has been processed culturally by the ways animal carcasses have been treated. In this article, the post-domestic phase in human–animal relations is entered by investigating the burial of working horses in the Finnish countryside during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Toward that end, 115 horse burials, 134 cemeteries, and 61 death places or kill sites were examined through interviews with local people, and a search of literature and place names. Six burial sites were excavated and several sites surveyed in the field. The locations of all sites were analyzed with historical maps. As a result, we consider that animal graves form a significant group of historical monuments that show great variability and are associated with past land use and human–animal relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People who are prejudiced against one social group also tend to be prejudiced against other social groups, that is, they show generalized prejudice. Many scholars have noted parallels between the devaluation and exploitation of certain human groups (e.g., racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice) and the treatment of non-human animals (often referred to as speciesism), suggesting that generalized prejudice may even extend across species lines. I tested this hypothesis using panel data with large and demographically diverse participant samples and different operationalizations of the devaluation of humans and animals. Study 1 (56,759 participants from 46 European countries) revealed a positive association between human-directed prejudice and human supremacy beliefs and this association was still observed when controlling for various socio-demographic factors (e.g., gender, educational attainment, religiosity, political orientation). Study 2 (1,566 Dutch participants) revealed positive associations between human-directed prejudice and a host of attitudes, beliefs, emotional responses, and behaviors related to meat consumption. For the majority of tests, this positive association was still observed when controlling for socio-demographic factors. Thus, both studies suggest that people who devalue human groups also tend to devalue the welfare and interests of animals. The current findings support recent theorizing on the common psychological roots of human-directed and animal-directed prejudice and attest to the generality of generalized prejudice.

This paper endeavours to unveil individual characteristics associated with an interest in One Health. Through the distribution of an online survey randomly distributed among the United Kingdom population, we discovered significant correlations between pre-existing attitudes towards and relationships with nature and animals and interest in One Health, which is quantified by the number of additional pages of One Health information participants agreed to view at the survey's conclusion. Additionally, individuals with poorer mental health demonstrated a higher level of interest in One Health. The findings suggest that interest in One Health and people's connections with nature and animals are driven by the same personal preferences. These insights point towards the potential for more targeted communication strategies to specific groups, facilitating more effective promotion of the One Health concept.

This article studies The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh as an exemplary text that cuts through the simplistic ideas of human-nonhuman relations. Adapting Bhrigupati Singh’s idea of agonistic intimacy, to a slightly different context, this article endeavours to investigate the cohabitation of ostensibly adversarial neighbours (humans and nohuman animals). The article seeks to elucidate the ways in which mythic and ritualistic oral traditions, related to the guardian spirit Bonbibi, function as mediators, fostering amity in these potentially contentious human animal relations. Ghosh points out the fallacy of ignoring the indigenous ecologies and highlights the absurdity of applying straight jacketed anthropocentric models of care in such contexts. Focusing on the multispecies ethos of the Sundarbans the novel embraces the porous and rhizomatic human-nonhuman kinship. This form of intimacy invokes existence of cohabitation and conflict and Ghosh’s novel is a case in point for exploration and understanding of such encounters.

One amongst many of the defining characteristics of so-called ‘late stage’ capitalism are human-animal relationships that have become acrimonious, hostile, or even monstrous in nature. A foundational premise of monster theory, and one that Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seminal 1996 edited collection of the same name suggests, is that the construction of the monster in popular culture is fraught with the boundaries that constitute the society that has spawned them; the monstrous body “exists only to be read” (p. 4). Bringing together the theoretical insights of the Marxist theory of reification, critical animal studies, and monster theory, this article examines the ways in which cinematic depictions of gigantic monstrosity can inform our theorizing of multispecies relationships under capitalism. Specifically, I explore how the tensions between capital and human-animal relationships serve to construct and constitute the multiform monster, Jean Jacket, in Jordan Peele’s 2022 film Nope. Through an examination of the multispecies relationalities that the film portrays, I argue that the figure of Jean Jacket is a monstrous culmination of the reified and therefore, necessarily deferred nature of human-animal relationships under capital. However, Nope’s conclusion alerts us to the radical dereifying potential of multispecies bonds of care and embodied knowledge; systems of resistance that can be forged even within our current capitalist ruins.

People who eat meat generally expect vegan food to taste bad. We theorize that this expectation stems in part from the perception that veganism is symbolically threatening; devaluing vegan food may enable meat-eaters to defend in-group values and defuse symbolic threat. We conducted four studies (total N = 1,563) on meat-eaters residing in the US. In Studies 1a and 1b, participants who most strongly endorsed carnism—the ideology that humans have a right to eat animals and their byproducts as food—were most likely to expect vegan food to taste bad. In Study 2, perceptions of veganism as symbolically threatening explained the relationship between carnism and taste expectations. In Study 3, experimentally increasing the salience of symbolic threat worsened taste expectations. Attachment to dominant group values and perceptions of intergroup threat may be barriers to the acceptance of veganism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the shifting and contemporary manifestations of menstrual taboos in central Kerala, India, particularly through the evocation of zoomorphic language and symbolism. It specifically focuses on a seemingly commonplace metaphor, pattiyayi (has become a dog), and argues that its connotative and cultural meanings have negative consequences for the construction of gender in Keralan society. The metaphor likens a menstruating woman to a dog. Further correlations between dogs and rabies patients culturally place the three categories – the domesticated carnivore, the person with a stigmatized illness, and the menstruating woman – as liminal entities, equivalent by association. Additionally, examining dog idioms (patti) in Kottayam that refer to the Dalit castes, the paper elucidates how idiomatic expressions evince societal juxtapositions of menstruating women with socially disparaged castes. These allegorical concurrences also draw attention to how the body and its organic activities and the propensity of certain bodies to incur permanent and internal pollution are at the root of symbolic denigration and gender and caste hierarchies. Furthermore, through the Foucauldian perspective on language, the paper links the dog metaphor to a micro theory of power by signifying the role of gendered power relations and the coalescence of discursive and material processes in historically shaping it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to make a small revision of the literature on rural domestic animals and wild ones in Brazilian cities from the perspective of an anthropology of human-animal relations. To this, we add some new ethnographic data, collected individually or together, which aim to cast a light on the idea of a city set apart from the 'natural world', as if there were no entanglements and intersections between humans and the wild fauna in contemporary cities. We want to believe that the animal life is also part of the urban landscapes, and that we build together these landscapes with multiple more-than-humans ecologies in an urban context. In this sense, the cities present themselves as the lace of an oykos of interactions and living with the urban fauna (domesticated, tamed or wild), and also with the flora (also domesticated, tamed and wild), along with other organisms in an ecological context that produces plural environments, instead of cities that onli mean the place of the anthropos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociological interest in research with nonhuman animals is growing, but theoretical discussion of the importance of 'multi-species ethnography' or 'embodied empathy' has not, as yet, yielded many practical, qualitative methods. Taking as its case study the systematic cultivation of 'the felt sense' in an equine-assisted personal development site, referred to here as The Forge, this article discusses what role our bodies should play in ethnographic research with nonhuman animals if we wish to approach, in the words of Vinciane Despret, 'what matters' to them. In particular, it explores the potential of the 'felt sense', worked through somatic-emotional and attentional practices, for achieving greater researcher reflexivity in the field. Using stories, drawings and videos from the research site, I show that finding 'clean communication', a place from where the horse's active voice can begin to be 'heard', requires an embodied, reflexive methodological labour that, following Beth Greenhough and Emma Roe, I describe as 'experimental partnering'. This understands the horse's behaviour as phenomenologically co-produced, rather than as an object of study, but nonetheless requires clients to cultivate a critical distance from their emotions and assumptions. I argue that the practical techniques employed have methodological relevance for human–animal relations in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the alimentary roles of beavers for Mesolithic societies and their importance for fur procurement. In this paper, we develop an integrated biocultural approach to human-beaver interactions, examining the position of humans and beavers in Mesolithic and Early Neolithic multispecies systems. We contextualize beaver landscape agency in hydroactive environments with human behaviour, synthesizing currently available data on mammalian assemblages, ichtyofauna and beaver-related material culture across Northern Europe. This cross-cultural, diachronic analysis reveals previously overlooked facilitations of human behaviour by beaver practices and ecological legacies. We show that long-term trajectories of human-beaver cohabitation differed between northern European regions. While in Southern Scandinavia, human-beaver intersections witnessed major re-organizations during the Mid-Holocene, beavers retained a key role for human societies across Northeastern Europe throughout much of the Holocene and played an important part at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Dutch wetlands. Divergent pathways are also evidenced by Mesolithic beaver-related material culture, highlighting the cultural keystone status of Castor fiber in higher latitude European landscapes. We argue that this keystone status is grounded in the supply of human hunting, fishing, and gathering affordances by the animals, pointing to the generative commensality between Mesolithic foragers and their beaver neighbours. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the importance of the beaver in the making of Early and Mid-Holocene forager societies in Northern Europe and illustrate the fruitfulness of deploying an integrated multispecies approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been increasing societal awareness of the crucial role that coastal dunes play in protecting against rising sea levels, mitigating climate change impacts, promoting biodiversity, and providing recreational opportunities. In some regions, dune management has been particularly focused on biodiversity and ecosystem restoration and the presence of alien species on dunes raises concerns about how these species become 'native,' 'invasive,' or 'hybrids' and whether they belong in their new ecosystems. These concerns illustrate how certain animals and plants assume different statuses according to normative categories associated with varying objectives. This article explores how perceptions of coastal dunes in the UK have transformed over time, from marginal resource frontiers to highly valued environments shaped by multispecies relations. In addition, this work explores how dunes around the UK emerge as 'patchy anthropocoasts,' that is, uneven landscapes designed by human purposes linked to economic activities, conservation, rabbit populations, unwanted vegetation, and the control of unpredictable sand movements. Bringing together diverse historical materials and scientific literature, this article links human and nonhuman histories with present debates on dune restoration from a transdisciplinary perspective rooted in anthropology, environmental history, and the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine human–animal encounters in Instagram selfies with seagulls. I ask how human–seagull relations are visualised, narrated and negotiated in Instagram posts with the hashtag “seagullselfie”. While my total data consist of 814 Instagram posts from before 2020 with #seagullselfie, I have chosen six photographs that represent different types of human–animal interactions for more detailed analysis, as they make visible human ambivalence towards non-human animals. For example, humans sometimes call seagulls “friends”, or even “cuties”, but at other times portray them as hungry, dirty and annoying – as “trash birds”. Drawing on Stacy Alaimo’s concept of trans-corporeal interactions, I focus on the embodied agencies, both human and non-human, and the multispecies sharing of spaces considered “urban” or “natural”. My method of studying the photographs of seagulls and humans is inspired by new materialist “ways of following” art, being moved by photographs and seeing where they take me. I argue that seagulls cross the hierarchical dichotomies of nature and culture and contest the anthropocentric ideals of nature as something that should be accessible on human terms. I claim that there is no beautiful and passive “nature” in the seagull selfies that remains as a background for human action. Instead, in these six photographs, seagulls stalk humans, take their food, photobomb them, refuse to pose for their photographs and ignore their clumsy attempts at friendship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freestyle disc dog is a sport in which a human handler throws frisbees for their dog to catch as part of a choreographed routine to music. In this article, we examine how different representations of ideal dog-human relations in media produced and consumed by American disc-dog players correspond to concepts of harmony. Drawing on philosophical writing about dog-human relations in the works of Vicki Hearne and Donna Haraway, the article argues that ideal ways of "fitting together," both on and off the disc-dog field, navigate competing visions of dog-human harmony in the US. An analysis of training handbooks, competition rules, online video interviews with American handlers, and footage of disc-dog training sessions and competitions identifies the best interspecies players harmoniously interacting both as predesigned, routinized parts of a predetermined whole and as entities who are open to being transformed by one another in the emergence of dynamic, unpredictable play. However, ways of experiencing and evidencing a successful partnership in disc dog--which includes "connecting" with one's dog, performing a difficult routine, and having fun with both one's canine partner and the audience--are not so easily aligned and often rub up against one another. This navigation of different concepts of harmony, we conclude, underpins a particular vision of dogs as straddling various forms of ideal canine-ness for American handlers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study examines the complex dynamics of human–dog relationships and their impact on interspecies communication. Twelve human–dog dyads were studied using narrative interviews to explore how people perceive their relationships with their dogs. In addition, the dyads engaged in a cooperative task to observe interaction dynamics during everyday activities. This study shows that individual expectations frame interactions and that traditional notions of dog ownership are evolving into more family-like relationships. Effective communication relies on a nuanced mix of verbal and non-verbal cues, with empathy emerging as a fundamental element guiding these interactions. Our findings underline the profound influence of human expectations, knowledge and empathy on communication with dogs. They also highlight the critical role of compatibility between human and dog dyads, and emphasize that such compatibility is a key determinant of satisfaction in interspecies relationships. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how human factors modulate communication and satisfaction in human–animal interactions.

This article presents the results of a combined archaeological and cultural anthropological study of 170 horse burials at a pet (companion animal) cemetery in Mikonkangas, Oulu, Finland. The applied methods include archaeological documentation, interviews with the horse caretakers, and visits to the site. Contrary to socially and legislatively controlled human burial grounds with organized maintenance, companion animal cemeteries with their inherent do-it-yourself character are often displays for more spontaneous expressions of grief and longing. The evidence of remembrance varies from nearly unmarked graves to elaborate memorials with headstones, epitaphs, flowers, and personal objects. The thought of a reunion in the afterlife is evident in some of the epitaphs and could also have influenced the use of crosses and angel symbols on some of the graves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This multispecies ethnography investigates how free-roaming ponies and humans participate in the production of "pony wildness" on Assateague Island, a barrier island located off the U.S. mid-Atlantic coast. The bordering practices of ponies intersect with the bordering practices of people to generate a relational conception of pony wildness that incorporates in people-pony relations a desire for intimacy with respect for autonomy, in a multifunctional landscape managed both as wilderness and as a beach tourism destination. This notion of pony wildness includes nonhuman charisma, fluidity, and managing human visitors. We conclude by discussing how the fluidity of pony wildness can help us think more imaginatively about other contexts in which communities of free-roaming nonhuman animals share space with human communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To convey the scale of destruction that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused to animals, plants, and ecosystems, analysts frequently use national-scale maps, aggregate figures, and the concept of ecocide. Although necessary, these moves risk portraying Ukraine exclusively as a zone of catastrophe, while obscuring the character of on-the-ground socioecological. This article enlarges the space for environmental narratives about war between catastrophe, heroism, and resilience by describing interspecies encounters along Odesa's Black Sea Coast, in the Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve, and in the Kharkiv Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predominant approach of protecting or restoring floral and faunal life after harming, displacing, or destroying them in service of human interests does not hold much promise for nature on Earth in the age of the Anthropocene. Such approaches fail to address the ethical and political-economic cores of what tend to be presented as techno-scientific or ecological problems. If the planet is to remain home to life beyond the human, mainstream human societies need to rethink their place, role, and entitlements on Earth, and relearn to cohabit with human and nonhuman others, even in the face of risk and uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invasive species pose a threat to biodiversity, and as such feature in some conservation education programs. However, there is debate about how to teach this difficult subject. We explored perspectives using a case study of education about introduced mammalian predators in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). We conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 NZ educators and animal welfare advocates and supplemented these data with material from a broader project on predator control in NZ. Our data indicated agreement that education should: 1) encourage respect for all animals, i.e., introduced predators should not be demonized and must be killed humanely; 2) enable children to develop their own opinions, e.g., whether to participate in trapping; and 3) designing programs to suit specific contexts, e.g., rural versus urban. However, there were disagreements, for example at what age children might begin trapping, and whether guiding students toward a particular conclusion is compatible with enabling their agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we include animals in sociology? Although sociology's initial avoidance of the nonhuman world may have been necessary to the field's development, recent scholarship – within mainstream sociology, environmental sociology and animal-centred research – is helping expand the field's horizons. With a focus on variety, this article reviews four key paths that researchers are taking to include animals in their research: (1) studying interspecies relations, (2) theorizing animals as an oppressed group, (3) investigating the social and ecological impacts of animal agriculture and (4) analysing social-ecological networks. This review shows how applying – and innovating – existing social theories and research methods allows researchers to include animals in their analyses and will be relevant to a variety of scholars, including mainstream and environmental sociologists, animal-focused researchers and social network analysts, to name a few. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explores the opinions of people who criticize the presence of wolves in Germany to understand what lies behind their concerns. It provides an intimate insight into the lives and fears of people and their relation to wolves and contributes to understanding the less considered critics of wolf management. By discussing the links between a fear of wolves, rural identity, and perceptions of nature, this paper proposes to explain how a human-wolf coexistence could still function for those who fail to be included in wolf management endeavors if wolf management added a social guideline on the basis of the presented problems. While a fear of wolves is generally ingrained in German society and wolves pose a real threat to farmed animals, for many people it is dysfunctional interhuman relations that pose a challenge in their coexistence with wolves, and less so the wolves themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical and pharmaceutical uses of animal life have gone through vast changes in the past centuries. Although the commodification of animals and animal parts is by no means an invention of modernity, its procedures and practices have evolved in multiple ways across time. Most notably, the exploitation of non-human animal life has been increasingly segmented, industrialized, and globalized. The collateral expansion of scientific and market institutions has led to specific modes of rationalization of animal breeding, culture, and trade for pharmaceutical purposes. However, this rationalization process has never been immune to its own matter—and the materiality of non-human commodification processes irrigates seemingly ordered and layered practices. Based upon a study on the international trade of donkey hide, this paper offers a characterization of the current pharmaceutical uses of animal life through a series of epistemic and environmental tensions expressing frictions between the market's absorptive logic and non-human modes of existence. We describe this set of tensions as 'feral pharmaceuticalization' and contend that they offer new perspectives on the analysis of the contemporary pharmaceuticalization process. In addition, such tensions showcase the importance of investigating the expansion of technological markets not only as simultaneous knowledge and milieux (or bodies) making, or as simple science and market hegemonic processes, but also as the construction of new stages of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If diplomacy is considered an alternative to war, can the ongoing human 'war against animals' be replaced with diplomacy between humans and other animals? While many scholars and practitioners of diplomacy can be expected to dismiss such an idea out of hand, this essay encourages us to think more seriously and thoroughly about what it might imply to engage diplomatically with nonhuman animals. Doing so requires a somewhat unconventional conception of diplomacy, and some scholars have already done much to rethink diplomacy in suitable ways (despite the persistent anthropocentrism). Combining such work with political science scholarship on human-animal relations, indigenous peoples' relations with animals, various notions of animal ambassadorship and the study of animal behaviour in natural settings, the essay argues that interspecies diplomacy is possible and urges scholars to further explore this and how the possibility in question can be translated into reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cat is now one of the most popular pets in the Netherlands, but it was once much maligned. The development of the European cat as a pet in general followed a trajectory from outcast with wealthy ladies as its sole ally, via idiosyncratic nobles and romantics, to the beloved and subversive muse of artists and creatives. The history of the French, English, and American cats has received attention in the past, but that of the Dutch cat has not. This latter history took a somewhat different turn, as is shown in this article. In the Netherlands the cat was adopted in the last quarter of the nineteenth century by the bourgeois and urban elite as well as by socialists, feminists, and avantgarde artists. The class-adjacent cultural tug of war that ensued about the cat was eventually won by the latter groups. These counter-cultural movements saw the cat as emblematic of their cultural position as creatives and people at the edge of society, linking the recalcitrant and enigmatic character of cats to their own idiosyncrasies. This association was to persist in the Netherlands and is mirrored today in the mainly left-wing political orientation of the Dutch cat-owner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through ethnographic attunement to the emotionally complex relationships between zookeepers and nonhuman animals, commodification in the political economy of Copenhagen Zoo produces a form of care characterized by coercive cooperation. Amidst the coercive constraints of captivity, keepers depict relationships as ranging from those of explicit coercion, where the animals are made to work, to those of cooperation, where the animals are perceived as working with. Within this context, zoo animals can be better understood as "cooperative commodities", lively commodities that are perceived as cooperating in their commodification. The belief in cooperation also reframes potential moments of resistance as opportunities to respond and thereby lessen the emotional toll on zookeepers when maladaptive behaviors highlight the failings of their captive environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]