Non-human grievabilities: affective witnessing in a Facebook pet loss support group

Abstract

Companion animals play a central role in many contemporary households, yet grief following their death continues to be socially marginalised and unevenly recognised. This article examines how non-human grievability is negotiated within an Australian-based Facebook pet loss support group. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with bereaved animal guardians, we consider grief as a relational and socially mediated emotion that becomes legible through practices of recognition and witnessing. In bringing Judith Butler's work on grievability into dialogue with Richardson and Schankweiler's discussion of affective witnessing, we explore how grief over companion animals is both affectively experienced and normatively regulated within digital environments. Participants describe navigating cultural hierarchies that downplay non-human loss while also finding validation through recursive practices of co-mourning within the group. We also show how Facebook's socio-material affordances, including closed group membership, moderation, and persistent visibility, shape how grief circulates, accumulates, and is regulated over time. In doing so, this article extends debates on grievability into digitally mediated contexts and contributes to scholarship on affect, platformed mourning and multispecies relationality.