Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T07:09:04.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Love, Loss, and Grief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2021

Damien W. Riggs
Affiliation:
Flinders University of South Australia
Shoshana Rosenberg
Affiliation:
Curtin University, Perth
Heather Fraser
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
Nik Taylor
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, we examine how women of diverse genders and sexualities speak about their relationships with animal companions. Drawing on an interview study, this chapter argues that for many women, loving relationships with animals highlight the tension between enmeshment and irreducibility. On the one hand, the women interviewed spoke about the genuine love and affection they experience with animal companions. This love was ‘more-than-human’, even if at the same time accounts of love were often framed in human terms. On the other hand, when speaking about the loss of an animal companion, the women interviewed acknowledged that the irreducibility of human and animal lives to one another meant that their grief was often not acknowledged. This chapter asks the question, then, of what it means to love an animal, knowing that humans are likely to outlive most domesticated animals and that the death of an animal is rarely seen as significant by other humans. How women of diverse genders and sexualities make sense of this question, this chapter argues, speaks to how being situated at the margins of intelligibility in terms of gender or sexuality affords women the space to think about the intelligibility or grievability of love for animal companions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Queer Entanglements
Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Animal Companionship
, pp. 32 - 63
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×