Non-human Relations Research Articles

Going Back to the Roots

Given growing human influence on the earth system's functioning, caring for nature has never been this critical. However, whether for economic interests or ‘wilderness’ preservation, attempts to save nature have been grounded on a Western scientific philosophy of separating it from people's ways of living, especially through ‘protected areas'. Under the banner ‘convivial conservation', which advocates socio-ecological justice and structural transformations in the global economic system, an alternative idea called ‘promoted areas’ has been proposed, advocating for conservation which promotes nature for, to, and by humans. Here, we argue that ‘promoted areas’ are best fitted with decolonial thinking in conservation science and practice. In southern Africa, one available ‘decolonial option’ is Ubuntu philosophy, which is anchored on the ethical principle of promoting life through mutual caring and sharing between and among humans and nonhumans. Ubuntu disengages from western ways of knowing about human–environment interactions, as it is predicated on promoting the many links between humans and nonhumans. From this, we argue that instituted through Ubuntu, ‘promoted areas’ re-initiate a harmony between human beings and physical nature, as practices of individualistic, excessive extractions of nonhuman nature are discouraged, and human–nonhuman relationships based on respect, solidarity, and collaboration are celebrated.

You get what you give: Pet relationships in a communal orientation framework

Previous research has demonstrated the association between human communal relationships and well-being. We extend the previous research and view whether relationship orientation to pet relationships affords similar benefits. We examined this with question with two correlational studies. Study 1 viewed the correlations between pet relationship orientation and well-being measures, both before and after controlling for other features of one's relationship with their pet to determine the unique contribution of relationship orientation. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated that communal pet relationships were similar to communal relationships with a participant's romantic partner and platonic friend, although their contributions to well-being were out shadowed by those of interpersonal relationships. The current findings advance relationship orientation by providing evidence that relationship orientation can be applied to non-human relationships.

Introduction

Introduction

Rethinking Human-Centredness and Eco-Sustainability in an African Setting: Insights from Luganda Folktales

ABSTRACT This article reflects on an alternative mode of anthropocentrism emergent from representations of human–nonhuman relations in a selection of Ganda folktales. In particular, it addresses some major claims against anthropocentrism: the failure to recognise the importance of holism; the overlooking of the intrinsic value of nonhuman elements; and the undue emphasis on the ontological divide between humans and other entities. The article is based on a descriptive qualitative study utilising data from folktales as repositories of both the ancient and experiential wisdom of the Baganda. It focuses on five carefully selected stories, recorded during live performances in Mpigi District of Uganda in 2019, on the theme of human–nonhuman relations. The article argues that while the Ganda folktales selected in this study would generally be considered as advancing anthropocentrism, they exhibit a commitment to environmental sustainability in ways that interrogate the anthropocentrism–ecocentrism dichotomy. Through a blend of thematic and structural narrative analysis of the folktales, the study reveals that a communitarian social setup could promote a balanced stance in human relations with the nonhuman. This study, thus, challenges the blanket disparagement of anthropocentrism in contemporary environmental scholarship.

‘Show yourself’: Indigenous ethics, Sámi cosmologies and decolonial queer pedagogies of Frozen 2

ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the immensely popular animated Disney film Frozen 2 (2019) through its potential as decolonial queer pedagogy. Drawing on Indigenous educational studies, queer and feminist Indigenous theories, and research on affect and trauma, we ask how the film popularizes Sámi nature-based cosmologies, addresses and attempts to repair the cross-generational transmission of settler colonial trauma, and presents a complex view of gender and human and non-human relations. Unlike in its predecessor Frozen (2013), in Frozen 2 Disney involved Sámi consultants in the production process, and the film was dubbed in North Sámi language. We interrogate Frozen 2's production process as well as its narrative and aesthetics, proposing that it allows its viewers – children and adults, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike – to engage with and learn about Indigenous ethics, Sámi cosmologies, and more-than-human understandings of gender and sexuality in respectful and easily approachable ways.

A SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL TURN IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION: REFLECTING ON CURRICULUM INNOVATION

This article proposes that mathematics education has reached a socio-ecological turn. I identify three strands to this turn. Firstly, current advances in the sciences point to the interconnectivity of life and the ecologies living within and without human bodies. Secondly, advances in the humanities point towards the need to re-think human and non-human relations. And thirdly, the ecological precarity of the world points to the need to re-think the purposes and aims of mathematics education. Two possible curriculum innovations, in response to a socio-ecological turn, are offered. In one case, the curriculum starts from a pressing ecological issue facing a community. In the second case, in a more standard schooling context, a communal mathematics is promoted, with an emphasis on students asking their own questions. A commonality is the dramatization of the curriculum.

Revisiting the Natures of War: Aegean Islands and the Ecologies of Displacement during the Civil War (1946–1949)

Military geographies have engaged with the subject of nonhuman nature in diverse and fruitful ways, mainly under the analytics of environment, landscape, territory (and terrain), and the more-than-human. Despite the diversity of contexts studied, spaces of displacement have not drawn scholarly attention within this literature. Starting from the position that human–nonhuman relations are emplaced, we offer an exploration into the natures of forced displacement during war. Specifically, we show that by extending our vision to spaces of displacement, we can see militarized nature under new, including more hopeful, lights. Drawing empirical material from the published memoirs of women and men displaced to the islands of the Aegean archipelago during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), we make a twofold case. First, spaces of displacement should be seen as key in the study of militarized geographies, as they explode the ways militarized nature is understood to be reproduced. Second, nonhuman nature, in the context of the spaces of displacement, can act as a vector of emplacement, resistance, resilience, and reworking against the violence of the post–World War II liberal state.

Rhetoricity at the End of History: Defining Rhetorical Debility under Neoliberal Colonialism

ABSTRACT This essay conceptualizes and applies a theory of rhetorical debility to new materialist rhetorical studies. Drawing from critical disability studies, rhetorical debility frames the ways that hierarchical human and nonhuman relations can inhibit certain rhetoricities while enabling others under neoliberalism. This theory extends the concept of “rhetorical capacities,” located within a genealogy of new materialist and posthuman thought in rhetorical studies, in response to intersectional critique of new materialism from Indigenous scholars and disability studies. The essay demonstrates rhetorical debility’s applicability to transnational sites of oppression along axes of disability, colonialism, and neoliberalism through a case study analysis of Palestinian protest rhetoric.

Conviviality in Disrupted Socionatural Landscapes: Ecological Peacebuilding around Akagera National Park

Convivial conservation presents itself as a vision of radical cohabitation across the Whole Earth, requiring people at the fringes of protected areas or people everywhere to manage day-to-day coexistence and conflicts with non-human species. This article assesses human-wildlife conflict interventions—an electric fence, compensation for wildlife damages, and traditional ecological knowledge—in a disrupted socionatural landscape, Akagera National Park in Rwanda, from the perspective of a framework of ecological peace. Ecological peace is defined through Galtung's (1969) theory of negative peace (freedom from direct violence) and positive peace (freedom from physical, cultural, and structural violence) as applied to relations between human and non-human species. While barriers and compensation schemes may make sense from the perspective of the conservation community's interests in reducing the negative impacts of wildlife on people, or vice versa, and especially towards improving people's perceptions of wildlife and environmental conservation, these human-wildlife conflict interventions may offer only negative ecological peace. Convivial conservation requires human-wildlife conflict interventions to go beyond negative and liberal peace approaches towards positive ecological peace to transform human and non-human relations for radical cohabitation across the Whole Earth.

Aquariums and Human–Animal Relations at the Great Barrier Reef


 
 In the early twentieth century, great delight in the unique tropical beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, coupled with an opportunistic spirit for commercial development, inspired the commission of eye-catching posters and advertisements by Australian tourist organisations. The aim of this article is to discuss a pictorial device that developed alongside the rise of modern tourist advertising images of Great Barrier Reef – a split-level viewpoint that approximates the effect of looking at the Reef through the glass sides of an aquarium. Building on my earlier research published in 2019 on wildlife photography and the construction of the Great Barrier Reef as a modern visual spectacle, and combining art history with environmental history, this article also turns to coloured advertising lithographs. It argues that split-level visualisations separate human from non-human and elevate the idea of human superiority. With the Great Barrier Reef facing unprecedented ecological pressures, the historical images at the centre of this article are instructive for understanding the deleterious effects of anthropogenic impact, as well as early twentieth-century attitudes towards human–non-human relations.
 

Testimoniality: A lexicon of witnesses of Holocaust non-sites of memory in Poland

The authors analyse grassroots modalities of the figure of witness in the communities living in the vicinity of uncommemorated sites of past violence. Testimoniality, understood as the disposition to bear witness, i.e. both the willingness to testify and the ability to provide important information, is discussed in relation to complex, heterogenic and dynamic assemblages that form around the sites in question, comprising both human (neighbours, wardens) and non-human actors (the landscape and biotope, material objects), diverse practices, performative gestures, and relations. The analysis is placed in the context of the debate on the complicated status of the “witness” as a category in the Polish post-war culture of memory, as well as of new relevant categories emerging in both Polish and international scholarship on the Holocaust. The authors conceptually systematise testimonial situations and propose a lexicon of testimonial positions, practices and objects that are grounded in the material gathered in fieldwork during the research project on unmemorialised sites of genocide in Poland. They distinguish: the crown witness, the trustee, the volunteer, the official and the contingent witness, and discuss categories of testimonial gesture, testimonial performance, testimonial object, and testimonial words.

Abstract of: Acid Love: Mines, Remediation and Ensembles of the Witwatersrand

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is the result of complex interde-pendencies between geological, ecological and cultural agencies. Its effects have been disastrous throughout the world, including in South Africa’s Witwatersrand region. Colonial and capitalist attitudes toward the environment have precipitated the contemporary situation; scientific approaches to remediation must be complemented by the development of alternative sensitivities. Sound art may work toward such an end, as discussed in this paper via Acid Love, an installation produced for the Watershed conference in Johannesburg in collaboration with the Centre in Water Research and Development (CiWaRD) at the University of the Witwatersrand. The piece, inspired by poet and performance scholar Fred Moten’s articulation of the term ensemble, presents AMD as an expression of unreconciled yet interdependent human and nonhuman action [1].Johannesburg has its origins in the extraction of gold and labor from the Witwatersrand Basin—one of the oldest geological formations on Earth—with colonial labor structures sedimenting into inequities that persist into the present day. Mining in the region has also produced a legacy of 6 billion tons of tailings piles. When exposed to water and oxygen, discarded pyrite undergoes a chemical transformation, separating into iron and sulfate and releasing acidifying hydrogen ions. This acid subsequently dissolves the surrounding rock, releasing heavy metals and exposing more pyrite. The result of such chemical feedback is acid mine drainage (AMD), which flows from old mining tunnels into groundwater, destroying local ecologies and compromising plant, animal and human health [2]. However, one form of bacteria, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans, thrives in highly acidic conditions and accelerates the acidification process [3].This paper explores how the interrelations at work in AMD are not well described by the term environment, as this suggests a passivity that A. ferrooxidans, among others, defies. Contemporary humanities scholarship has introduced a host of alternatives, such as “vibrant matter” and “assemblages,” in an attempt to remediate Western discourse. Fred Moten’s “ensemble,” while not originally applied to geology or ecology, nonetheless resists colonial narratives of dominance over nature. “Ensemble” speaks to the improvisatory, multivocal and potentially agonistic interactions that occur within human and nonhuman relationships, and the sonicity of the term implies an ongoing process that allows for invisible forces [4].Ensembles of AMD in different parts of the world are interrelated even as they are situated in local conditions; prior work in Colorado brought the author to Johannesburg to collaborate with CiWaRD. University research into remediating AMD is motivated not only by concern for public health but also by the commercial potential of rare earth metals it contains, which are essential to the digital media economy. CiWaRD’s approach uses “bioreactors” that incorporate living and nonliving agents that extract metals and produce potable water as an ensemble effect [5].The sound artwork Acid Love comprises vessels of AMD gathered from a CiWaRD research site on the outskirts of the city and installed at the Tshimologong Precinct, a former nightclub turned digital innovation center in downtown Johannesburg. The vessels are connected in an electrical circuit that incorporates the conductivity of the dissolved metals and produces sound. The sound is further modulated by data from the bioreactors. The installation itself also performs a remediation—over time the metals will precipitate to the bottom of the vessels, and both the sound and the color of the water will subsequently change.Acid Love demonstrates how a resonant substance like AMD is an access point through which to engage with an otherwise intractable degree of interdependencies. The color, smell, conductivity and toxicity of AMD make it available to the “ensemble of the senses” [6] in a way that can be approached as art. The questions immediately follow of what it is and how it came to be. The paper discusses how the work is, therefore, a means of participating in, rather than representing, the ensemble of AMD.

"Like I'm Talking to a Real Person": Exploring the Meaning of Transference for the Use and Design of AI-Based Applications in Psychotherapy.

AI-enabled virtual and robot therapy is increasingly being integrated into psychotherapeutic practice, supporting a host of emotional, cognitive, and social processes in the therapeutic encounter. Given the speed of research and development trajectories of AI-enabled applications in psychotherapy and the practice of mental healthcare, it is likely that therapeutic chatbots, avatars, and socially assistive devices will soon translate into clinical applications much more broadly. While AI applications offer many potential opportunities for psychotherapy, they also raise important ethical, social, and clinical questions that have not yet been adequately considered for clinical practice. In this article, we begin to address one of these considerations: the role of transference in the psychotherapeutic relationship. Drawing on Karen Barad’s conceptual approach to theorizing human–non-human relations, we show that the concept of transference is necessarily reconfigured within AI-human psychotherapeutic encounters. This has implications for understanding how AI-driven technologies introduce changes in the field of traditional psychotherapy and other forms of mental healthcare and how this may change clinical psychotherapeutic practice and AI development alike. As more AI-enabled apps and platforms for psychotherapy are developed, it becomes necessary to re-think AI-human interaction as more nuanced and richer than a simple exchange of information between human and nonhuman actors alone.

“A Dog Called Neville”: Using Dog Names To Explore Theory And Method In Anthropology

Abstract This paper explores our efforts to capture the imaginations of first-year anthropology students and draw them into a space where they could learn to think anthropologically and experience the insights this perspective provides. Usually, creating field-based opportunities for undergraduate students is difficult, but the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible. Faced with limited opportunities to advance the students’ ethnographic experience and learning, we decided to focus our attentions on a subject that students were very familiar with, and which became almost a symbol of lockdown: the family dog. Through our focus on dogs, we explored key theorists and theoretical concepts, kinship and nonhuman relationships, and the changing construction of the modern family. This paper reports on the exercise and the insights it brought forward in terms of human-dog relationships in contemporary Australia.

La relación de depredación entre humanos y no-humanos en la ontología de los q’ero de la cordillera de Vilcanota, Perú

The anatomy of human and non-human (apus, pachamamas, the dead etc.) relations and dependencies manifests itself in different types of daily practices and rituals (agri-culture and herding, mobility, alimentation, ritual songs, shamanic and medicinal practices) and reveals ontological schemes of exchange and predation. Interestingly, both schemes can be expressed through the idiomatic expression of “feeding”. This implies that the purpose of relationships between personal beings is to feed each other through reciprocal practices (exchange) or feed on others (predation). In this paper, we analyze the scheme of predation among the Q’eros, which takes the forms of seduction, sexual intercourse, cannibalism and kidnapping. Different types of predation were grouped into three modalities (oblivion, breaking the taboo and otherness) that constitute the axis of the narrative and, at the same time, represent the origins or causes of these relations.

Developing Human Trust in Automated Systems: The Central Role of Personal Control

In this article, we build from previous research on the antecedents of trust in human and non-human relationships to identify and classify four primary components of autonomous system trustworthiness (superior capability, reliable credibility, accessible customization, communicated consideration). Using these components, we develop a theory outlining the psychological processes that lead individuals to trust autonomous systems. A primary contribution of our theory is that we demonstrate how an individual’s perceptions of personal control influences the development of human trust in an autonomous system. We argue that the extent to which a technology increases an individual’s sense of personal control on key dimensions (i.e., control over one’s task environment and control over a given technology) determines the extent to which an individual will trust a given autonomous system. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the theory we outline here advances research on human-machine interaction and trust in autonomous systems.

Socio-technical practices of young children and parents in the home: a case study from Japan

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore what socio-technical arrangements are created from an amalgamation of young children, their families, and technology. Lawrence Lessig’s four forces – law, social norms, market, and architecture – were used to analyze the practices and constraints of children’s digital activities and parental involvement in the home. A home-visit interview study with six parent–child pairs found the children’s activities to be constrained by four elements: 1) rules arranged by children and parents; 2) domestic norms among their families; 3) markets through which parents purchase digital devices; and 4) architecture in the physical and spatial configuration of the home. These four constraints created new opportunities for children’s activities. The children’s use of technology not only expanded their activities, but also exploited technological vulnerabilities. The ambiguity of the activity led to a reorganization of the domestic architecture and a reconstruction of the rules between parents and children. IMPACT SUMMARY a. Prior State of Knowledge: Children’s domestic digital activities are collectively composed of heterogeneous actors including children, parents, artifacts, and technology. It is useful to introduce a perspective of human and non-human relationships and analyze what kinds of socio-technical arrangements exist in their activities. b. Novel Contributions: An analysis of children’s digital activities in the home, using Lessig’s four forces, showed both expansion and vulnerability of their activities. This ambiguity led to a reconstruction of the domestic architecture and the rules between parents and children. c. Practical Implications: Lessig’s four elements broaden children’s digital activities beyond individual children to parent-child relationships and socio-technical arrangements. Parents and practitioners can use them to consider extensions and constraints of children’s activities with technology.

The nonhuman turn: Critical reflections on alienation, entanglement and nature under capitalism

This article critically reflects on contemporary discussions of human–nonhuman relations and their consequences for ecological politics. Recent critiques push back against popular ‘nonhuman turn’ appeals to ‘decentre’ humans and downplay distinctions between humans and nonhumans. The article seeks to both extend and nuance these critiques by emphasising how uneven developments from colonial to digital platform capitalism have intensified historical processes of alienation between humans and the rest of nature. This focus contextualises the nonhuman turn as a response to increasingly alienated forms of entanglement, which may hamper rather than enable challenging contemporary forms of domination. To address this, two conceptual shifts are proposed. First, a shift away from ‘decentring the human’ to a dialectics between more-than-human and ‘less-than-human’. This move emphasises how forms of capitalist domination continue to diminish (certain) humans and nonhumans and how challenging this requires pivoting between de- and recentring humans where needed. Second, a shift from ‘more-than-human’ to ‘more-than-life’, to emphasise how through extremely uneven histories of capitalist development the intensification of alienation has led to growing tensions between ontological relationality and epistemological and practical distinctions.

Understanding the lived experience of connection to nature

AbstractThere are multiple theoretical understandings of connection to nature. Often, scholars define a connection to nature as being the outcome of a process of awakening “biophilia.” They may also define it as the maturation or development of an “ecological self,” where one sees nature as part of oneself, or as an awareness of oneself as a member of a wider biotic community. Using evidence from longitudinal in‐depth interviewing and participant observation, this article examines these differing conceptualizations of connection to nature in lived experience. We find that feeling connected to nature is about feeling an affinity for, and that one belongs within, a wider web of nonhuman relationships. This sense of feeling connected to nature is unstable; it may be felt and then recede according to the circumstances in which people live and their competing priorities. The difficulty of sustaining consistent close relationships with nature in everyday life presents some challenges to the hope that enabling people to feel connected to nature will induce reliable pro‐environmental behavior. Relationships with nature fluctuate, and it is necessary to examine how a connection to nature can be nurtured at every stage of life.

Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death

Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death