Co-being and intra-action in horsehuman relationships: a multi-species ethnography of be(com)ing human and be(com)ing horse A multi-species perspective identifies and offers ethnographic insight into a variety of everyday, practical experiences and the roles they may play in shaping human-horse relationships. Analysis of narrative data from 60 open-ended interviews with a wide variety of riders in Norway and the Midwestern USA identifies three central themes of co-being. These are expressed, felt and voiced as embodied moments of mutuality, engagements of two agentive individuals and as a kind of anthropo-zoo-genetic practice, where species domesticate each other through being together. Co-being as intra-acting describes how horse and human meet and change as a result of their meeting.

Multi-species ethnography calls for new ways of engaging the contact zones or areas of entanglements among humans and other species. A number of studies identify and describe the roles of embodiment and bonding in developing a sense of partnership or co-being between horse and rider that challenge hegemonic dualisms of horse-human or nature-culture. Less attention is paid to potential roles that the local physical environment or terrain where riding takes place can play in the development of particular horse-human relationships. Informed by a grounded practice theory approach, analysis of narrative data collected in sixty open-ended interviews with US Midwestern and north Norwegian horse people, who participate in different equestrian sports and ride within a variety of local settings, demonstrates complex ways in which terrains ridden effect a complex series of interwoven constructions of shared ecologies of horse-rider relations, identities, and psyches. Riding venues for this study include walled arenas, open spaces of the Great Plains, and forested mountains of Arctic Norway, wherein riders and horse enact their selves as highly schooled, deep thinkers; fearless, adrenaline junkies; self-pacing, heroic stoics, and/or as connoisseurs of nature’s versatility.