What’s in it for the animals? Symbiotically considering ‘therapeutic’ human-animal relations within spaces and practices of care farming

Abstract

Human-animal relations are increasingly imbricated, encountered and experienced in the production of medicine and health. Drawing on an empirical study of care farms in the UK, this article uses the language of symbiosis to develop a framework for critically considering the relationships enrolled within interspecies therapeutic practices. Care farming is an emerging paradigm that aims to deploy farming practices as a form of therapeutic intervention, with human-animal relations framed as providing important opportunities for human health. This article moves to attend to multispecies therapeutic interventions and relationships from a more-than-human perspective, drawing attention to the often-troubling anthropocentrism in which such practices are framed and performed. Attempting to perform and realise human imaginations of ‘therapeutic’ affects, spaces and relationships can rely on processes that reduce animals’ own opportunities for flourishing. Yet, the therapeutic use of other species does not have to be forever anthropocentric or utilitarian. The article explores whether relations between humans and animals might result in a level of mutual proliferation of affective capacities, reciprocally beneficial. These human-animal entanglements highlight opportunities to think more critically about how to practice interspecies relationships and practices in ways that are less parasitic, and instead framed more by attempts at producing opportunities for mutualistic flourishing.

“Disciplined research in undisciplined settings”: Critical explorations of in situ and mobile methodologies in geographies of health and wellbeing

“…With growing interest in health, place, and wellbeing as situated, emergent, and relational, research conducted in and beyond the geographies of health and wellbeing is increasingly looking to in situ and mobile methods that offer complementary insights into the diverse temporalities and spatialities of health, wellbeing, illness, and impairment (Andrews & Duff, 2019;Bell et al, 2019;Gorman, 2019;Hall & Wilton, 2017). As ever, "so what" questions rebound on such methodologies: What do they add to established narrative descriptions of health and wellbeing?…”

“…Such approaches may also open up opportunities to attend to more‐than‐human ethics of encounter, in this case perhaps using the video footage to observe the responses of non‐human animals at the care farm to these interactions. As noted by Gorman, such encounters also “interrupt and disrupt animals' own health capacities and assemblages” (, p. 313). Without a more‐than‐human ethic of care, there is a risk of “elevating human experience, relegating non‐humans to a state of utility” (, p. 314).…”

“…As noted by Gorman, such encounters also “interrupt and disrupt animals' own health capacities and assemblages” (, p. 313). Without a more‐than‐human ethic of care, there is a risk of “elevating human experience, relegating non‐humans to a state of utility” (, p. 314).…”

“…Mobile and in situ methods hold particular appeal within geographies of health and wellbeing through enabling researchers to engage with embodiment and emotion at diverse temporal scales; from momentary more-than-human encounters in the "field" opening up new bodily capacities to feel and act (Gorman, 2019), to more repetitive emplaced practices that become imbricated within therapeutic accretion over time (Foley, 2017). Through being with participantsin person, or remotely through growing access to geo-spatial technologies and toolsresearchers can begin to understand the significance (to health, wellbeing, impairment, and illness) of diverse patterns of movement and pause, sociality and solitude in place (Bell et al, 2015), alongside embodied, emotional, and physical transformations that unfold as people transition through the networked spaces and places that constitute everyday life (de Leeuw et al, 2018).…”

“Perhaps something of beauty can grow:” experiences of care farming for grief

“…The present study expands upon earlier work on care farming for grief and offers a broad description of how a large sample of bereaved individuals experienced care farming under more naturalistic circumstances. This care farm serves as a sanctuary for abused, neglected, and homeless animals, which are not used to provide food or other products for human consumption (the roles which animals on more conventional care farms typically serve, being embedded within a wider agricultural paradigm), enacting more mutualistic human-animal interactions (Gorman, 2019): the animals benefit via their removal from situations of abuse and/or neglect or by avoiding slaughter, while humans benefit via viewing and interactions with the animals.…”