Agents of sustainability

How horses and people co-create, enact and embed the good life in rural places

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4445945
AutoresHelen Wadham (0000-0002-9980-4409, Department of Strategy, Enterprise and Sustainability Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester UK, autor de correspondencia), Carrianne Wallace (0000-0002-9555-6700, College of Business and Social Sciences, Aston Business School, Aston University Birmingham UK), Tamzin Furtado (0000-0002-1590-6417, Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences University of Liverpool UK)
Año2023
Volumen63
Número3
Páginas390-414
Fecha de publicación2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociologia Ruralis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0199 • E-ISSN: 1467-9523
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/soru.12387
OpenAlexW4281747719
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas105

Notions of the good life are often strongly linked to rurality. Existing conceptualisations tend towards an anthropocentric and individualised approach centred on personal wealth, status and happiness. In contrast, this article reframes the good life as an interspecies endeavur, which embeds people and animals alike by recognising their interdependent relational configurations within the wider natural-social environment. Specifically, we bring insights from the concept of buen vivir to bear on research among people who live alongside their horses in rural areas of the UK. We find that horses enhance, enable and mediate people's understanding and experience of the rural good life. In contrast to popular and scholarly conceptions that emphasise privilege and leisure, the interspecies iteration that emerges is characterised by hard work, collaboration and purposeful active learning. This has profound implications in turn for our understanding and experience of sustainability, as these interspecies relations lead participants into a more active stewardship of both the immediate and wider environment

Anthropocentrism · Custodians · Rurality · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Urban Green Space and Health