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

Wadham, Helen, Wallace, Carrianne and Furtado, Tamzin ORCID: 0000-0002-1590-6417 (2023) Agents of sustainability: How horses and people co-create, enact and embed the good life in rural places. SOCIOLOGIA RURALIS, 63 (3). pp. 390-414.

Access the full-text of this item by clicking on the Open Access link.

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/soru.12387

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>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 <jats:italic>buen vivir</jats:italic> 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.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	buen vivir, co-creation, Good life, human-animal relations, landscape, sustainability
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	24 Oct 2022 09:24
Last Modified:	29 Sep 2023 14:06
DOI:	10.1111/soru.12387
Open Access URL:	https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12387
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3165712