Therapeutic landscapes and non-human animals: the roles and contested positions of animals within care farming assemblages

Gorman, Richard 2017. Therapeutic landscapes and non-human animals: the roles and contested positions of animals within care farming assemblages. Social & Cultural Geography 18 (3) , pp. 315-335. 10.1080/14649365.2016.1180424

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Abstract

The concept of therapeutic landscapes has been used as a way to critically understand how health and well-being are related to place. However, traditional discourses on therapeutic landscapes have been constructed from an anthropocentric perspective, completely ignoring and silencing the agency and experiences of non-humans. Building on the idea of therapeutic spaces as assemblages, I highlight the heterogeneity of elements that come together to produce therapeutic space. Mobilizing empirical research undertaken in spaces involved in the practice of ‘care farming’, I demonstrate how non-human presence actively creates and facilitates a therapeutic engagement with place. However, with this recognition of the non-human in therapeutic spaces, there is a need to discuss animals’ contested positions, and question the ways in which being part of these assemblages impacts animals; for whom are these landscapes therapeutic? Thus, this article advocates a critical understanding of the role of non-human animals as both co-constituents and co-participants of therapeutic spaces, moving from framing therapeutic spaces – and the animals within them – purely in relation to human needs and desires.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Subjects:	S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) S Agriculture > SF Animal culture
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Therapeutic landscapes, care farming, human–animal relations, more-than-human, animal geography, post-humanism
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
ISSN:	1464-9365
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	9 May 2016
Date of Acceptance:	29 February 2016
Last Modified:	28 Nov 2024 20:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/90694

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