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By Lisa Howard, Postdoctoral Researcher

In this blog piece I want to inspire different thinking about emotional relationships and what constitutes family by considering connections and affinities across species. I will use two different stories - one of caring for garden birds, the other of caring for a large collection of houseplants, to talk about how bonds between humans and other species can be formed but subsequently ruptured through moving home. I’ll discuss how care, responsibility, and entangled lives have defined these relationships as interdependent, yet fragile and contingent.

Firstly, my own tale of my recent home relocation within the city of Edinburgh.  For the past 4 years, every morning almost without fail I have fed the birds in my back garden. Liberally distributing an array of seeds, grains, and mealworms between hanging feeders, squirrel-proof containers, and the shed roof, I have encouraged daily visits from a large array of at least twenty different bird species, from pigeons and magpies to dunnocks, wrens, robins, and starlings. I have greatly enjoyed watching the feathered scrums for food, shrieking squabbles, and characters of the birds that have come to count on me for breakfast each morning.

I live in an urban area, and while my original motive was to help out birds in the winter, my feeding practice had become year-round when I considered the global biodiversity crisis, humanity’s encroachment of wildlife habitats, and the responsibilities and opportunities we humans have to care for urban wild animals. But beyond inter-species aid, I had, in turn, begun to depend on the birds and the relationship I had built with them. Seeing and hearing the birds each morning gave me a joyful sense of connection to the natural world and a deep feeling of inner calm. I enjoyed ‘knowing’ and recognising individual birds through their markings or body shapes, and even the distinct song of individual blackbirds. The birds knew and recognised me too; they would wait in the nearby trees expectantly at 7.25am and felt safe in my company to fly down to the feeding station as I replenished it at 7.30. Each spring, I would delight in seeing the new wave of starling fledglings come to the garden, led by their parents who knew my garden could provide nourishment for their young.

Then in June this year, my partner and I moved home, driven by the space constraints of our flat. When we decided on our house move, the initial excitement of extra dwelling space was punctured by sadness when I thought about how I would no longer be able to feed and care for ‘my’ birds. My daily routine and sense of purpose to venture into the garden in all weathers to greet the many hungry and expectant mouths would be abruptly ruptured.  I would have to break my relationship with these beautiful creatures. I felt a deep sense of loss, and also guilt at abandoning my responsibility to help sustain animals that had come to depend on me over the past 4 years. Even as I write this several months after moving, I still miss ‘my’ birds, the individuals I had come to know and love.

I believe my sense of kinship with these birds had come about through a caring relationship for individuals whom I felt I knew, and who in turn responded to my practices of care. Our interactions became part of a daily, embodied routine, sharing the garden as a relational space defined by the practices of feeding and eating. These interactions were routine but emotional in that I felt happiness and a sense of purpose, and the birds felt satisfaction from an easy meal. 

To give another example of cross-species connection and kinship is from my friend Eva, whose account of caring for her houseplants and what this meant to her is best told in her own words:

I previously had a collection of around 30 houseplants, acquired over several years but mostly during the pandemic. Early on in 2020, I even spent one of my government-permitted hour walks to go and collect a Calathea that someone was giving away as it was not faring well in their home. In this time of isolation, caring for the plants gave me a connection to nature and to living creatures, that felt so limited during lockdown. I would check in my plants, usually daily, researching the best ways to care for them. I would take cuttings from them, in accordance to the best season for doing so, which I would trade with other people using local plant trade groups, as well as with my friends. And when some of the lockdown measures eased, one of the first trips we did was to pick up some more plants from a garden centre.

When I had to rehome my plants [due to a relocation to Spain] I felt really upset. I had prepared to reduce my collection and had already earmarked a few favourites that would be making the trip abroad with me. However, when I found out that no plants would be able to travel, I knew I had to get it over with quickly and offered the plants to friends and sold some to people I vetted on Gumtree. One of the new owners sent her husband to collect around fifteen of the plants, and he and my husband had a conversation about their respective partners loving plants, and how much I hoped that they would be looked after. This made me feel significantly happier, knowing that their new owner was so excited about their arrival.

These plants had been with me for a long time, and I had personified them and attributed characteristics (‘this one is so dramatic’, ‘this one is un-killable’, ‘this one’s so difficult’). I definitely had favourites! I also had several that I had a special attachment to as they had belonged to my Grandad, in particular a set of orchids that he had nurtured for several years. My Gran had always resented them as she said, “They look like sticks for most of the year!” and would indeed refer to them as ‘the sticks’, but he had persevered, nonetheless. However, as he got into his 90s he decided to hand them over to me to look after. I opted not to think about this too much as I knew rehoming them was inevitable. Other plants were given to me as birthday presents, anniversary gifts, and some were grown from tiny propagations. The memory attached to them, and the work I put in to helping them grow formed an emotional connection to each plant. My husband also offered to replace any and all of the plants once we were settled in Spain. Although I am looking forward to taking him up on this offer, it can’t quite replicate the bond I had formed over years of being together with my plants in the same four walls, with years of care.

Eva’s story overlaps with mine in its portrayal of attention to the needs of others who are not human, bonds built over time, and emotional tenor.  Her story also echoes the fragility of these bonds when, despite entangled spaces and practices, the mobilities inherent in our human world are sometimes incompatible with those of other species. Within academic research, sociological studies of people’s relationships with others who are not human are sparse but growing. Scholars have documented the deep emotional affinities people can build with animals, and in particular, the ways in which pets are embedded in people’s personal lives (Greenebaum, 2004; Charles, 2014). For many people who keep animals for companionship rather than function, much emotional investment goes into their care, and grief is often experienced when they die, likened to the loss of a family member (Charles and Davies, 2008; Tipper, 2011).

Given the experiences outlined in this blog piece, I believe that studies of families and kinship could benefit from stretching beyond pets to include plants and non-domesticated animals. This could offer a richer account of the relationships that matter to people, and the ways in which these relationships shape, and are shaped by, particular values and practices. It could deepen our knowledge of non-conventional ‘families of choice’ (Weston, 1991) by not confining these to the study of human-only relationships. Incorporating contextual issues as climate change and ecological loss, studying interspecies relationships could help us think about some of the many interconnections of different earth beings, and the importance of care and responsibility for other species.

References

Charles, N. (2014). ‘Animals just love you as you are’: Experiencing kinship across the species barrier. Sociology, 48(4), 715-730.

Charles N and Davies CA (2008) My family and other animals: Pets as kin. Sociological Research Online 13(5).

Greenebaum J (2004) It’s a dog’s life: Elevating status from pet to ‘fur baby’ at Yappy Hour. Society and Animals 12(2): 117–35

Tipper, Becky. (2011) 'Pets and Personal Life.' Chapter 8 in V. May (Ed.) Sociology of Personal Life. Basingstoke: Palgrave

Weston, K. (1991) Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gay Men and Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press