“Be[a]ware of the Dog”: A Post‐Humanist Approach to Housing.

Alongside much talk of the dissolution of a nature /culture binary view of the world, there is also, symmetrically, considerable change observed in the performance of relations with non‐humans and the proliferation of hybrids (Latour 1993, Haraway 2003). Through an examination of why and how humans and companion species have begun to live with each other in new ways this paper will challenge (at least) two of those sociological disciplines currently governed by humanist ontologies. It suggests that the sociology of the family and the sociology of housing need a new post‐humanist makeover, for it is increasingly doubtful whether either are exclusively human domains. This is because neither families, households or housing can be thought of any longer as humans among themselves. Companion animals are now found not only in the vast majority of human households / families but their position, role, agency and status has shifted quite profoundly. Using data from a national survey of human–animal relations in Australia it will be shown that companion animals are widely regarded as, and act as, family members and that they occupy housing in profoundly different ways1. The paper argues that this new period of intimacy also ushers in the potential for greater mutual becomings (or co(a)gency to use Michael's term2) as both companion species and their humans (together with their technonatural contexts) explore even more possibilities of co‐presence. The paper concludes with an example of this, taken from the House Rabbit Society: a radical and ever more popular experiment in becomingrabbitbecominghuman (to use a Deleuzian convention)3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]