Interviewing Animals Through Animal Communicators

animal communicators; decolonization of knowledge; human-animal relations; Indigenous paradigms; interspecies communication; intuition; multispecies methods; ontological turn; Veterinary (all); Sociology and Political Science; Philosophy

Abstract :

[en] Animal communicators worldwide employ intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) to engage in detailed, two-way communication with nonhuman animals. IIC's potential for doing research with rather than on animals has been insufficiently explored, due to contingent onto-epistemological biases. Cooperating with animal communicators as interpreters, pilot interviews with felines were conducted. Challenges included clearly filtering the animals' voices and bridging ontological divides and communication modes. Nevertheless, the interviews produced clear, distinct, and consistent responses, challenging and confronting both animal communicators and the researcher to reflect on their perspectives, expectations and assumptions. Engaging animals as research participants through IIC simultaneously unsettles hierarchical divides between humans and other animals, as well as between different ways of knowing. IIC can support researchers and (non)human participants in the co-creation of novel methodological multispecies strategies that form a practical counterpart to the largely theoretical explorations of the ontological and species turns, and further multivocality in academia.

Disciplines :

Anthropology

Author, co-author :

Wijngaarden, Vanessa ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences sociales > Anthropologie de la communication ; Department of Communication Studies, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Language :

English

Title :

Interviewing Animals Through Animal Communicators

Publication date :

2023

Journal title :

Society and Animals

ISSN :

1063-1119

eISSN :

1568-5306

Publisher :

Brill

Volume :

Issue :

5/6

Pages :

519-539

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://brill.com/view/journals/soan/32/5-6/article-p519_4.xml

Funders :

UJ - University of Johannesburg

Funding text :

This research was funded by a Global Excellence Stature Fellowship and the Humanities Dean’s office at the University of Johannesburg. The author kindly thanks all human and nonhuman collaborators.

Available on ORBi :

since 04 June 2025

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