Category: Research

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This paper explores some of the different relationships that horses and humans experience in the case study country of Wales. In doing so, it pays attention to differential patterns of equine care/lack of care and explores these from a sociological perspective considering evidence of the potential impact of cultural practices and socio-economic status in particular. The paper concludes that access to common lands and “fly grazing” may be associated with specific values and norms which may result in equine neglect, while indicators of socio-economic deprivation and patterns of equine neglect do not seem to be related. The paper highlights the variation in equine care across this relatively small national population and suggests some areas where further explanatory work could usefully be undertaken in order for us to better understand the care-relationships between horses and their keepers.

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We argue for the notion of egomorphism as an inexorable discursive element in/for children’s interspecies encounters mediated by nature interpreters. We do so by examining the discourses of a public environmental educator in Canada and a dolphin trainer in a marine park in Portugal while mediating such pedagogical experiences. Our analytical work contributes to expanding the understanding of how human–nonhuman interactions can create opportunities in science and environmental education to disrupt the notion that humans are superior and therefore removed from other animals.