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Alongside much talk of the dissolution of a nature /culture binary view of the world, there is also, symmetrically, considerable change observed in the performance of relations with non‐humans and the proliferation of hybrids (Latour 1993, Haraway 2003). Through an examination of why and how humans and companion species have begun to live with each other in new ways this paper will challenge (at least) two of those sociological disciplines currently governed by humanist ontologies. It suggests that the sociology of the family and the sociology of housing need a new post‐humanist makeover, for it is increasingly doubtful whether either are exclusively human domains. This is because neither families, households or housing can be thought of any longer as humans among themselves. Companion animals are now found not only in the vast majority of human households / families but their position, role, agency and status has shifted quite profoundly. Using data from a national survey of human–animal relations in Australia it will be shown that companion animals are widely regarded as, and act as, family members and that they occupy housing in profoundly different ways1. The paper argues that this new period of intimacy also ushers in the potential for greater mutual becomings (or co(a)gency to use Michael's term2) as both companion species and their humans (together with their technonatural contexts) explore even more possibilities of co‐presence. The paper concludes with an example of this, taken from the House Rabbit Society: a radical and ever more popular experiment in becomingrabbitbecominghuman (to use a Deleuzian convention)3.
Notes
1. The study, an Australian Research Council funded project Sentiments and Risks: The Changing Nature of Human‐Animal Relations took place between 2000 and 2004. It combined a nationally representative survey of 2000 respondents with a series of case studies focussed around veterinary practice and relationships with wildlife. The survey was conducted over the telephone with Australians over the age of 16 years and we randomized the choice of respondent in each household by asking to speak with the person whose birthday was next. This guaranteed that all ages and genders are represented. We also created statistically representative interview targets for all capital cities and state rural areas. The main survey was administered by NCS Pearson and the survey instrument was comprised of 13 key questions of which 5 established key data on the type of animals respondents shared their lives with, 7 were Likert‐type questions which investigated values and practices with respect to animals generally and one question was comprised of a battery of sub‐questions obtaining key social , economic and demographic data. The overall response rate was 35% (calculated as a proportion of answered calls).
2. See Michael (2000).
3. This derives from Deleuze & Guatari's work on “becoming animal” in One Thousand Plateaus. This involves a radical decentring of the subject through imagining and practicing what it might mean to be another species.
4. See Ingold 1995; 2000.
5. Of course there are other species that we do not purposefully live with, that also matter: woodworms, mice, rats, mites, etc.
6. According to Abercrombie, Hill & Turner (The Penguin dictionary of sociology, 2005) ontological security “refers to the security, order and regularity that people feel in their lives, which are likely to be most clearly experienced in a stable sense of personal identity over time”. Clearly, divorce, spatial mobility, labour market change and cultural change produce a churning of ontological security or ontological insecurity.
7. Adrian Franklin (1999) Animals and modern cultures. London: Sage.
8. Josh Schonwold. NIA will fund a study about loneliness, its physical risks. University of Chicago chronicle 21(5), pp. 5–9.
9. BBC News (2005) Britain singled out as lonely nation, 27 March, 2000. London, UK.
10. Lindsay Tanner. Address to The Sydney Institute, May 4 1999.
11. Garrity, T. F. & Stallones, L. (1998) Effects of pet contact on human well‐being: review of recent research, in: C. Wilson & D. Turner (Eds), Companion animals in human health (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
12. Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (2003). The truth about cats and dogs. Press release, 14 May 2003.
13. Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung (1995) Machine readable codebook ZA Stut 2450: ISSP 1993 environment (Köln: Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung).
14. By this I mean reaching out in a sensual and cognitive way to inscribe rabbits more closely in human culture and practice.