decentralizing human-animal interaction
research project, 2020 | mentor: futurewell research group
project description:
social interactions between stray cats and caregivers were analyzed throughout the practices and the artifacts done for interactants in neighborhoods and created a booklet.
at the beginning of the research process, the main purpose was to investigate collectively driven care practices in neighborhoods to analyze the impact of sharing culture on stray animal care. what are the caregivers' needs? which channels have been using to communicate in the community? which kind of structures do the communities have? while the practices and information are collected, by the nature of the project sites, those questions slowly become to ask the participants of interactions in the process. speciesism and anthropomorphism notions and their influences have started to shape the main structure of the current research. reconsidering these impacts is important by the reason for rendering the ecosystem into a more egalitarian approach for each living creature. our study has a mission of asking speculative questions to make queries about the attitude towards artifacts and interventions designed by human beings for different species.
figure 1: cover illustration from the booklet.
figure 2: illustration from the booklet.
to ask those questions, social interactions among participators have been grouped into three subcategories: cat-human interactions, human-cat-human interactions, cat-nonhuman interactions. outcomes of subcategories have been supported by surveys, interviews, observations of existing practices. in addition to this, human-computer interaction (HCI), animal-computer interaction (ACI), user-centered design, animal behaviors, interactions of people, and animal literature have been reviewed in the study.
figure 3: illustration from the booklet.
this study aims to make readers questioned the topics that have been researched and observed. asking speculative questions right end of the sections has been tried to displace
perspectives widely acclaimed. this booklet does not provide any end product but also keep triggering new questions afterward. after all, the tendency towards speciesism, human-centrism, adult-centrism, and anthropomorphism are a couple of notions that have been discussed through the booklet. sociality motivation, the need to feel socially connected with others, has been proposed as an important determinant of individual variation in anthropomorphic thinking (Paul et al., 2014, p. 499). criticizing centralist and anthropomorphic approaches throughout questions generated the main structure of the booklet.
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"is it possible to talk about an ecosystem in which all components who are cats, nonhuman animals, adults, children, and many others are involved in the process in equal shares, moreover, how might be designed?"
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to reach the whole content click here!
figure 4: illustration from the booklet.
references:
Paul, E., Moore, A., McAinsh, P., Symonds, E., McCune, S., & Bradshaw, J. (2014). Sociality Motivation and Anthropomorphic Thinking about Pets. Anthrozoös, 27(4), 499-512. https://doi.org/10.2752/175303714x14023922798192