Search results

In recent decades, our knowledge and perceptions of animals have changed considerably. An increasing number of scholars are interested in exploring animals and their roles in the context of tourism, hospitality and leisure. Recent studies have covered both practical and theoretical aspects of this topic, sometimes including considerations of animal ethics. This chapter argues that it is time to reflect on the research ethics and methodological implications of such emerging perspectives. The chapter presents a literature review addressing the shift in tourism, hospitality and leisure studies from a human/animal dualism and anthropocentrism focus to a recognition and inclusion of animals' perspectives. It develops a set of guidelines for a methodology intended to underpin research about and involving animals, inspired by the ecofeminist care tradition and elaborated on in light of the reviewed literature and the author's personal experience. Three main approaches are identified: fictional, multispecies ethnography, and multispecies technology-based approaches.

To outline the multiple ways in which animals are inserted into sporting practices, outline historical and contemporary approaches to studying human–animal sporting practices, and advocate for the centering of sociological problems in human–animal research in sporting contexts and cultures and for considering such problems in relation to environmental issues.

In the first part of the chapter, conceptual differentiation of animals in the animal–sport complex is presented. Subsequently, studies of interspecies sport are reviewed with reference to the “animal turn” in the literature. In the second part, a critique is presented relating to: (1) the privileging of companion animals, especially dogs and horses, which overlooks the multiple ways animals are integrated into (multispecies) sport; (2) micro-sociological and insider ethnographies of companionship displacing of sociological problems in favor of relationship perspectives; and (3) the environment as absent from analysis. The conclusion offers implications for understanding multispecies sport and the environment.

I chart a general shift in emphasis and focus from animals as an “absent presence” in pursuit of sociological knowledge toward a clearly defined focus on interspecies sport as a field of research characterized by investigations of relationships with companion animals through the “animal turn.”

The focus on companion species means other animals (i.e., noncompanions) are understudied, big picture sociological questions are often sidelined, environmental concerns marginalized, and sociological understanding of the environment more generally is either ignored or reduced to a conduit of human–animal interactions.

Songkhla Lake is the largest lake in Thailand along the Bay of Thailand, situated at latitude 7°08′ and 7°50′ north and longitude 100°07′ and 100°37′ east (Fig. 4.1). The lake covers an area of approximately 1,042km², and consists of four interconnected lake ecosystems (Ratanachai & Sutiwipakorn, 2005): Thale Noi (approximately 27km²), Thale Luang (approximately 473km²), Thale Sap (approximately 360km²), and Thale Sap Songkhla (approximately 182km²).

From a historical viewpoint, decline of fishery resources were commonly identified in all three case studies. The reasons behind the decrease of fishery resources differ, depending on varying extent of socioeconomic and political features as well as of the natural environment. The book reviews the underlying causes learned from each case study experience, and put together a set of environmental issues for lagoon fisheries management that be addressed.

My encounter with ‘interculturality’ was partly occasioned by the fact of being born in Belgium at a period in time where growing up with multilinguality was a matter of normality and partly by then living and working in eight countries across all continents. Working in local communities and later in academic contexts sharpened my awareness about the importance of language in the transference of knowledge and interlinguistic exchanges of knowledges. Especially knowledges pertaining to the underlying ontological and epistemological differences and shadings of meanings and that require contextual understanding of these meanings are at the core of the chapter. The regular mistranslations occurring from social science texts originally written in other-than-English languages caused original meanings to get lost in translation. Some of the consequences of such mistranslations are examined, focussing on education and possible futures in our ‘pluriverse’, especially in the present epoch where global conversations are ever more important to address our predicaments, facing ecological disaster, extinction and the potential un-liveability for humans and so many other species of the earth. Including the non-human in our relational considerations for a possible future enlarges the need for new and interculturally understandable knowledge systems and the positivist and other epistemological inclinations in the dominant West will not make this any easier considering our rather sad record during the past four centuries.