Therapeutic landscapes and non-human animals: the roles and contested positions of animals within care farming assemblages

Abstract

The concept of therapeutic landscapes has been used as a way to critically understand how health and wellbeing are related to place. However, traditional discourses on therapeutic landscapes have been constructed from an anthropocentric perspective, completely ignoring and silencing the agency and experiences of non-humans. Building on the idea of therapeutic spaces as assemblages, I highlight the heterogeneity of elements that come together to produce therapeutic space. Mobilising empirical research undertaken in spaces involved in the practice of 'care farming', I demonstrate how non-human presence actively creates and facilitates a therapeutic engagement with place. However, with this recognition of the non-human in therapeutic spaces, there is a need to discuss animals' contested positions, and question the ways in which being part of these assemblages impacts animals; for whom are these landscapes therapeutic? Thus, this article advocates a critical understanding of the role of non-human animals as both co-constituents and co-participants of therapeutic spaces, moving from framing therapeutic spaces -and the animals within them -purely in relation to human needs and desires.

More‐than‐therapeutic landscapes

“…Here there have been calls from numerous scholars to consider entities such as animals (Gorman, 2017), technologies (Andrews & Kitchin, 2005;Paterson, 2006), and wider emotional/affective spatialities (Duff, 2014) as key elements within the constitution of therapeutic landscapes. Here there have been calls from numerous scholars to consider entities such as animals (Gorman, 2017), technologies (Andrews & Kitchin, 2005;Paterson, 2006), and wider emotional/affective spatialities (Duff, 2014) as key elements within the constitution of therapeutic landscapes.…”

“…Since its first conception, the therapeutic landscapes concept has thus proven alluring to geographers as a way of understanding the actual and potential effects that the environment can have on the health or well-being of the body. As Gorman (2017) notes, for instance, it has been both taken up and adapted widely by geographers interested in a whole host of bodily ailments and malaise: both in terms of "mainstream" healthcare issues (Andrews, 2004;Duff, 2014;Parr, 2003) and institutions (Andrews & Shaw, 2008); and in terms of "holistic," "complementary," and "traditional" medical treatments (Conradson, 2005;Doel & Segrott, 2004;Gorman, 2017;Williams, 1998). Therapeutic landscapes have also been used to some extent as a means of thinking beyond health, instead considering the wider support structures and institutions that make up non/semi-medicalised care and wellbeing (e.g., Conradson, 2003;Disney, 2015;Milligan & Wiles, 2010).…”

Thinking laughter beyond humour: Atmospheric refrains and ethical indeterminacies in spaces of care

“…These studies again either analyse in terms of humour, or through measuring cognitive patterns of people who are laughing. As such, I would argue, in line with other nonrepresentational scholarship around therapeutic atmospheres (Duff, 2016;Gorman, 2016;McCormack, 2003;Williams, 2002) that there is a need here to think more fully about the multiplicities within the singularity of each event (of laughter) (Nancy, 2000): about the totality of the assemblages it is de/reterritorialises, and thus about the different directions it is encountered from (including ones that might not be being ''measured''). In doing this, we might discover that laughter, even if encountered from just around the corner, often has ethical potentials that are very different and more complex than those which initially appear.…”

Keeping Lily Safe: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Human–Animal Attachment during Adversity

“…Trussell and Shaw argue that this is because rural communities are often perceived as close-knit, caring and surrounded by the simplicity and peacefulness of the natural environment. However, rural perceptions of the roles of animals differ compared with those of people living in towns and cities (Gorman 2017). A strong tradition of farming means that in rural communities, companion animals are more likely to be conceived of as labour and to live entirely outside the family home.…”