Written and spoken words: representations of animals and intimacy

Abstract

In this paper I explore the differences in the ways people write and talk about their relationships with animals, focusing on those they regard as kin and with whom they live. I draw on responses to the Animals and Humans Mass Observation directive, which was sent out in the summer of 2009, and 21 in-depth interviews with people who share their domestic space with animals. I suggest that writing about relationships with animals produces a particularly intimate representation which is almost confessional, while talking to another person about similar relationships renders the intimacy less obvious and represents human-animal relations in a different way. I argue that this is because the written accounts are composed with a particular audience in mind, the information divulged is not mediated by another human being and, as a result, normative constraints are less pervasive. Interview data, in contrast, are co-constructed in conversation with another person, there is the possibility of judgment during the course of the interview and normative expectations shape the discursive representation of human-animal intimacy. I reflect on the methodological implications of these findings for developing an understanding of intimacy across the species barrier.