Nora Schuurman - Böcker

In recent years, animals have entered the focus of the social and cultural sciences, resulting in the emergence of the new field of human–animal studies. This book investigates the relationships between humans and animals, paying particular attention to the role of affect, space, and animal subjectivity in diverse human–animal encounters. Written by a team of international scholars, contributions explore current debates concerning animal representation, performativity, and relationality in various texts and practices.Part I explores how animals are framed as affective, through four case studies that deal with climate change, human–bovine relationships, and human–horse interaction in different contemporary and historical contexts. Part II expands on the issue of relationality and locates encounters within place, mapping the different spaces where human–animal encounters take place. Part III then examines the construction of animal subjectivity and agency to emphasize the way in which animals are conscious and sentient beings capable of experiencing feelings, emotions, and intentions, and active agents whose actions have meaning for the animals themselves.This book highlights the importance of the ways in which affect enables animal agency and subjectivity to emerge in encounters between humans and animals in different contexts, leading to different configurations. It contributes not only to debates concerning the role of animals in society but also to the epistemological development of the field of human–animal studies.

In recent years, animals have entered the focus of the social and cultural sciences, resulting in the emergence of the new field of human–animal studies. This book investigates the relationships between humans and animals, paying particular attention to the role of affect, space, and animal subjectivity in diverse human–animal encounters. Written by a team of international scholars, contributions explore current debates concerning animal representation, performativity, and relationality in various texts and practices.Part I explores how animals are framed as affective, through four case studies that deal with climate change, human–bovine relationships, and human–horse interaction in different contemporary and historical contexts. Part II expands on the issue of relationality and locates encounters within place, mapping the different spaces where human–animal encounters take place. Part III then examines the construction of animal subjectivity and agency to emphasize the way in which animals are conscious and sentient beings capable of experiencing feelings, emotions, and intentions, and active agents whose actions have meaning for the animals themselves.This book highlights the importance of the ways in which affect enables animal agency and subjectivity to emerge in encounters between humans and animals in different contexts, leading to different configurations. It contributes not only to debates concerning the role of animals in society but also to the epistemological development of the field of human–animal studies.

This book focuses on the spaces and practices of caring for horses, explored in a series of case studies set across the equine lifespan. For horses, everyday practices of care as well as ever-changing understandings of what is good care directly shape their living conditions and lives with humans. In this book, questions of animal ethics and welfare are approached in a tangible way by exploring the relationships and practices of interspecies care across a range of different spaces, including horse yards, training grounds, farms, rescue centres and the street.The chapters illuminate the ways in which interspecies care ties horses to human society and culture, addressing care practices in different stages of the equine life cycle. Through a unique set of case-studies addressing issues such as training, working, rescue, aging and death, the book offers a clear overview of how humans shape the lifespan of animals living under their care. It simultaneously foregrounds the agency of animals in this process and how such agency is interpreted and responded to by humans. With its theoretically solid analysis of rigorous empirical study, the book answers the need to understand human connection to the nonhuman world within the everyday practices and spaces of contemporary society and culture.