What happens when I touch my dog? What worlds have moved so that I, Letícia, a white, middle-class woman, a university professor, am now in contact with Sissi, a female, long-haired, grayish mixed-breed dog? When I touch her, is it just a chance encounter, or is it an immense history that made the conditions for this touch possible? What does it mean, and what does it produce, this encounter between our organisms, true ecologies connected in this long history of coexistence between our species1 1 Additionally, I would suggest another reading by the same author, which inspired me on the ideas presented here, also recently translated into Portuguese: Haraway, D. J. (2022). Quando as espécies se encontram. Editora Ubu. ?
The questions that open this review may seem trivial, but they can be complexly problematized considering the work of philosopher and biologist Donna Haraway. For the American thinker, a touch like this deals with an uninterrupted chain of coexistence and codependence that tells us a story of embodied cohabitation, coevolution, and interspecies sociability. When I touch Sissi, I touch the history of coevolution between humans and dogs, a mundane story that is told in Biology and History books, but also in our genes. Both Sissi and I are particular and situated beings, heirs of tragic and happy encounters and misencounters, products of the history of species constitution, of economic and social transformations, among many stories and structures marked colonialism, ethnicity, gender, and class (Haraway, 2021). In these transformations, stories, and structures, I would add, many organizations have been and are present. They are in the modern technologies of creating subjects and objects of "pure race", in the production of a commodity culture that daily manufactures the so-called "pet industry" (whose marketed products, as it is known, include not only all kinds of goods and services, but the very lives of beings classified as such), in the governmental health and hygiene apparatuses, as well as through rescue, adoption, and human-animal work practices in urban and rural worlds.
These are important starting points to think about Donna Haraway's theoretical, ethical, and political project. This manifesto, originally published in English in 2003, finally gains a translated version in Brazil that, in addition to the five sections that make up the book, includes extra materials: an interview with the author by sociologist Nicholas Gane, brief recent writings by Haraway that revisit some ideas developed in the book, and an afterword by philosopher Fernando Silva e Silva. With this work, scholars in the field of Management and Organization Studies can reflect not only on the complex multispecies entanglements in organizational practices that involve humans and dogs, but also on the possibility of producing management processes that challenge established notions, such as the ontological separation between (human) society and nature, or between humans and other existences on the planet.
Through the notion of companion species, Haraway (2021) emphasizes the entanglements of sign and flesh formed through relations of coexistence, collaboration, and mutual domestication that produce possibilities of existence. In the book, the author blends conceptual developments with storytelling that highlights her relational thinking and allows us to perceive that these relationships can be seen in the most frugal action of playing with our dog, but also in the chemical composition of the oceans and the Earth's atmosphere, in the (dis)arrangement of the planet's climate, in the processes of digestion in our bodies, and, as current times may lead us to think, also in pandemics and biosafety. Produced mutually through relations that are not always harmonious, companion species, whether they are animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, or viruses, among many others, are, in a friendly manner or not, materially and semiotically implicated with other existences.
For this discussion, it is essential to consider the proposition of the thinker, who, in working with the notion of emerging naturecultures, prompts us to break with supposedly pre-existing divisions, seeking to understand nature and culture as provisional and local categories, albeit with potent consequences. To do so, she draws on the work of professionals and researchers from various fields, including the anthropologists Marilyn Strathern and Anna Tsing and the biologist Lynn Margulis. From the latter, Haraway draws on the powerful notion of symbiogenesis, revolutionary in evolutionary biology for allowing symbiosis, rather than competition, to be seen as the driving force of evolution2 2 The reference for the author's seminal text, which took years to be accepted in Biology due to going against the hegemonic currents of the field, is as follows: Sagan, L. (1967). On the origin of mitosing cells. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 14, 225-274. .
Thus, with connection, companionship, and relationship as the main object and focus, Haraway proposes the idea of thinking with companion species, drawing the reader's attention to the “becoming with” that allows multiple multispecies relationships. It is an insightful path to challenge traditional organizational thinking and practices that view companion species as either resources or obstacles to management (Labatut et al., 2016Labatut, J., Munro, I., & Desmond, J. (2016). Animals and organizations. Organization, 23(3), 315-329. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416629967
https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416629967...
). Instead, companion species should be recognized as essential members of the community that shares the planet and produces worlds with us. This reinforces the need to revise the inherent anthropocentrism in organized relationships with what is conventionally called nature (Ergene et al., 2018Ergene, S., Calás, M. B., & Smircich, L. (2018). Ecologies of sustainable concerns: Organization theorizing for the Anthropocene. Gender, Work & Organization, 25(3), 222-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12189
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12189...
).
Haraway dedicates the book to human-dog relations, but her thoughts can inspire us to reflect on the complexity of other multispecies legacies we have inherited. Her call to inhabit the world with attention and care requires mutual responsibility and a willingness to be disturbed by curiosity, hence the importance of thinking of care and knowledge practices as densely entangled. Therefore, it seems to make sense at this point to ask: What can management learn by "entering the kennel"? By asking this question, I think we can use this work to reflect on the possibilities of thinking about and producing organizational knowledge and practices that are mundane, but also have consequences and are embedded in the world. These practices should not only focus on the concrete issues that we face in the catastrophes and urgencies of the Anthropocene but also take into account the broader context of our world.
The book's immediate contribution is to provide insights into knowledge and practices surrounding the organized relationships between humans and animals. These relationships exist in various domains, such as food production or in the case of other types of animal-derived products; in the emerging services, goods, professions, and markets around pets; in the organizations and businesses that rely on the entertainment and spectacularization of animal lives, such as aquariums, zoos, rodeos, parks, and sports; in work relationships in rural (animal traction, herding) and urban (property protection, security services, search and rescue services, assistance services) worlds: in scientific and laboratory experimentation; in urban and rural land management, through zoonosis control and biosafety services; in wildland management, based on policies and practices of preservation and relationship with the so-called “wild species”. These are just some examples of relationships between organizations and animals. However, despite their ubiquity, the tradition of organizational research and practice fails to acknowledge and address the ethical problems, contradictions, and ambiguities associated with animal invisibility and objectification in organizational practices. As management scholars and practitioners, we need to constantly and conscientiously question the types of organizational practices we produce with animals, their impact on the world, and the beings they harm or benefit. For instance, we must consider whether to continue exploitative or collaborative practices with animals and how these practices shape the world and impact human and non-human lives.
The book offers another possible contribution beyond its immediate impact. It allows us to examine our organized relationships not only with animals, but also with non-animal species that produce and organize different ecosystems, and together makeup what we call "environments." By thinking about these companion species, we can challenge anthropocentrism and the traditional view of nature as a separate and opposing domain to human society and organizations. This shift in perspective can help us rethink our approach to "environmental issues" and sustainability in management. Our field is highly influenced by the hegemonic view inherited from Western modernity, which emphasizes self-motivated unitary categories, portrays nature as a homogeneous and inert object, and makes it difficult to think and organize in a way that recognizes humans as part of nature (Fantinel, 2021Fantinel, L. D. (2021). Viver e organizar multiespécies: Um convite à Administração para seguir com o incômodo. XLV Encontro da Anpad. Evento online.). This dualistic view regards nature as a homogeneous, inert, and external object to human action (whether in a perspective that advocates for the protection of a supposed, innate, and abstract "natural environment" or in an extractivist view that conceives nature as a set of resources to be exploited). It displaces us in relation to nature, as if we ourselves and our expressions and dynamics were not nature, and makes it difficult to think and practice organizationally without placing humans at the center of organizational practice, but rather in a web with other forms of life and existence.
The idea of management entering the kennel involves a call to action and organization for and with companion species to ensure survival on Earth. The book offers us an opportunity to explore theories and methods of multispecies organizing (Fantinel, 2020Fantinel, L. D. (2020). O organizar multiespécie da cidade. In L. A. S. Saraiva & A. S. R. Ipiranga (Eds.), História, práticas sociais e gestão das/nas cidades. Barlavento. P. 297-344.) that connect different forms of existence in order to create worlds where we can live and die well together.
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1
Additionally, I would suggest another reading by the same author, which inspired me on the ideas presented here, also recently translated into Portuguese: Haraway, D. J. (2022). Quando as espécies se encontram. Editora Ubu.
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2
The reference for the author's seminal text, which took years to be accepted in Biology due to going against the hegemonic currents of the field, is as follows: Sagan, L. (1967). On the origin of mitosing cells. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 14, 225-274.
REFERÊNCIAS
- Ergene, S., Calás, M. B., & Smircich, L. (2018). Ecologies of sustainable concerns: Organization theorizing for the Anthropocene. Gender, Work & Organization, 25(3), 222-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12189
» https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12189 - Fantinel, L. D. (2020). O organizar multiespécie da cidade. In L. A. S. Saraiva & A. S. R. Ipiranga (Eds.), História, práticas sociais e gestão das/nas cidades Barlavento. P. 297-344.
- Fantinel, L. D. (2021). Viver e organizar multiespécies: Um convite à Administração para seguir com o incômodo. XLV Encontro da Anpad. Evento online.
- Labatut, J., Munro, I., & Desmond, J. (2016). Animals and organizations. Organization, 23(3), 315-329. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416629967
» https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416629967
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
29 May 2023 -
Date of issue
2023
