Speaking with other animals through intuitive interspecies communication: towards cognitive and interspecies justice

Abstract

Intuitive exchanges between humans and other species constitute a form of interspecies communication that has been experienced and practised widely over time and across cultures. Yet its uptake in academe has been slow, given the tricky terrain of knowledge and species hierarchies, together with a pervasive, socially constructed separation between humans and other beings. Anthropocentrism (human-centredness) and human exceptionalism (the valuing of humans above other animals1 based on purportedly superior traits) (Anderson, 2014) both reinforce this inaccurate and instrumentalist positioning, thwarting cognitive justice across species. In efforts to respect more-than-human animals as subjects, scholars studying animal geographies, together with colleagues from fields such as, but not limited to, environmental education, Indigenous studies, anthropology, feminist critical animal, trans-species, multispecies and human–animal studies, are seeking ways to engage animal voices in their research, educational practices and everyday lives (Bear, 2017; Blenkinsop et al., 2017; Buller, 2015; Deloria, 2006; Dowling et al., 2016; Fawcett, 2000; Gibbs, 2019; Hamilton and Taylor, 2017; Haraway, 2004, 2008; McGinnis et al., 2019; Taylor and Hamilton, 2014). For many animal studies scholars, the aim is to achieve ‘a portrait of shared existence’ (Lorimer, 2010: 73) and co-becoming (Haraway, 2008) that does not contribute unwittingly to the oppression of non-human beings (Anderson, 2014). Central to