Book review - When Species Meet, Donna Haraway, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London, 2008, pp.423, ISBN: 978-0-8166-5046-0.

Like many sociologists, my first introduction to the work of Donna Haraway was through her famous paper A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century (1991, originally published in 1985). At the time, I was struck and inspired by her novel take on human-technological relations in the late-twentieth century. It challenged and altered my sociological perspective. From that point, I have keenly read many of Haraway’s works, being intrigued by her examinations on the interface of and interactions between humans and nonhumans.

In many of her examinations, Haraway has focused on how humans have become cyborgs – cybernetic organisms. However, in When Species Meet (2008) and her previous work The Companion Species Manifesto (2003), Haraway has turned her attention to human-animal (and animal-human) relations, though the relevance and importance of technology remains.

When Species Meet (2008) is the third volume in the Posthumanities series, edited by Cary Wolfe. Clearly, the work of Haraway has been important to posthumanism, but she declares not to be a posthumanist (Haraway 2008: 19). The reason is that she is not simply questioning humans; rather, all species are under question. Thus, the book addresses an abundance of animals – nonhuman primates, wolves, cats, donkeys, tigers, whales, wombats, guinea pigs, tsetse flies, and animals created by science and largely for science through genetic engineering and cloning – but primarily focuses on domestic animals and Haraway’s personal relationships to her dogs, particularly with the Australian Shepherd, Ms Cayenne Pepper.

Throughout the book, Haraway repeatedly emphasises that human-animal relations are not simply about humans. For her, humans and animals are co-constituted, creating each other through an interdependent relationship. Essentially, animals and humans are companion species. This differs from animals being companions, where animals are defined solely by their relation to humans. Companion species is a way of examining interspecies relationships by rethinking the human and animal species; questioning them and their construction. This involves being curious about the experience of the other, which highlights how humans and animals are interlinked, co-shaping each other and co-inhabiting space. In the words of Haraway (2003: 54), “If I have a dog, my dog has a human; what that means concretely is at stake”. Haraway (2008: 49-64) further highlights that it is difficult to categorise human-dog/dog-human relations as we share many things; we share histories and diseases, and we are co-present as co-workers, consumers, and companions. This relationship, however, is rarely symmetrical, and despite all we share, otherness remains. For example, the relationship between humans and animals that co-inhabit space cannot be reduced to “parent-child, guardian-ward, and owner-property” (Haraway 2008: 51-2; original emphasis) meaning, for example, pets cannot be reduced to being furry children or substitutes for human children (Haraway 2003: 37, 95-6).

Divided into three parts – Part I: ‘We Have Never Been Human’, Part II: ‘Notes of a Sportswriter’s Daughter’, and Part III: ‘Tangled Species’ – When Species Meet focuses on how interspecies relationships matter socially, politically, economically and technologically, and what is at stake when examining and taking these relations seriously. However, the book does not always come together. It is far ranging and covers multiple topics, some in too much depth and others not enough. It is also eclectic by interweaving a variety of genres, and the prose is philosophical, personal, autobiographical, descriptive, analytical, empirical, and historical.

Due to the autobiographical elements, I found the book to be occasionally self-indulgent. For example, chapter six (‘Able Bodies and Companion Species’) is largely a tribute to her father, and much of the book focuses on Haraway’s relationship with her dogs – Roland and, primarily, Cayenne Pepper – and how she believes they experience their relationship with her. Furthermore, despite the focus on companion species, animals are not always active in Haraway’s explorations. An exception to this is in her engagement with and examination of agility trials, and how these have the potential to form interspecies relations and understandings. At the same time, I am yet to be convincingly persuaded that agility trials are positively experienced by humans and dogs alike.

One thing I struggled with in this book was the following question: when is dogginess (or whatever animal species is under question) compromised by their asymmetrical relationship to humans? I wonder, despite interspecies co-presence, if humans can identify animal emotions and desires, something which I found Haraway (2008: 220) to be occasionally guilty of: “her [Cayenne Pepper’s] whole mind-body changes when she gains access to her scene of work”. However, Haraway (2008: 220-1) continues, and admits that “I would be a liar to claim that agility is a utopia of equality and spontaneous. […] The courses are designed by human beings; people fill out the entry forms and enter classes. The human decides for the dog what the acceptable criteria of performance will be”. I also found much satisfaction in Haraway offering her own informed position on various animal uses, something that was lacking or ambiguous in much of her previous work.

For those who have followed Haraway’s publications, expect significant repetition and many connections to her previous work on companion species, techno-human-animal intermingling, and on being a ‘sportswriter’s daughter’. At the same time, the book does provide some interesting insights into interspecies relations, and is a good introduction for the uninitiated to Haraway’s recent theorising. For STS scholars, chapters three (‘Sharing Suffering: Instrumental Relations between Laboratory Animals and Their People’) and four (‘Examined Lives’), and Part III: ‘Tangled Species’, are very informative and particularly interesting.

References Haraway, D.J. 2003. The companion species manifesto: Dogs, people, and significant otherness. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

Haraway, D.J. 1991. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, London: Free Association Books.