My reconnaissance trip to Argentina is drawing to a close, and there is much on which to reflect…
The curiosity that shaped my research question, “How do horses and humans communicate in the Himalayas and Argentina”, was born while I lived in Argentina and before I had any idea of its future academic evolution. During the pandemic I was stuck in the UK, and my personal interest shaped itself into the idea for this PhD thesis. Many research related documents require certainty in the plans you present. In current times, plans need flexibility to accommodate the unexpected. These two elements lie in tension.
This is the first time I have been back to Argentina since the pandemic and since the development of my PhD thesis on the construction of horse-human communication. During this trip, imagination and theory finally met reality.
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Tag Archives: cats
Respecting the privacy of my feline research participants
The above ‘announcement’ (Figure 1) showed up in one of the many Facebook groups for domestic cat (Felis catus) guardians and enthusiasts that I am a member of. The post makes fun of the EU’s relatively new General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) legislation, but in doing so it trivialises the notion of privacy being extended to more-than-human animals (hereafter abbreviated to animals). The message implies that the notion of extending privacy rights to cats is ridiculous. But is it? The concept of privacy in relation to animals is something I continue to grapple with, both as a researcher and personally as a cat guardian.
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Anthrozoology as Symbiotic Ethics 