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When Species Meet
In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending over $38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.”
In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal-human encounters.
In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending—socially, ecologically, orscientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.”
Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal-human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.
423 pages, Paperback
First published November 26, 2007
128 people are currently reading
2318 people want to read
About the author
Donna J. Haraway
73 books1,212 followersDonna J. Haraway is an American Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department and Feminist Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, United States. She is a prominent scholar in the field of science and technology studies, described in the early 1990s as a "feminist, rather loosely a postmodernist". Haraway is the author of numerous foundational books and essays that bring together questions of science and feminism, such as "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" (1985) and "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective". Additionally, for her contributions to the intersection of information technology and feminist theory, Haraway is widely cited in works related to Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Her Situated Knowledges and Cyborg Manifesto publications in particular, have sparked discussion within the HCI community regarding framing the positionality from which research and systems are designed. She is also a leading scholar in contemporary ecofeminism, associated with post-humanism and new materialism movements. Her work criticizes anthropocentrism, emphasizes the self-organizing powers of nonhuman processes, and explores dissonant relations between those processes and cultural practices, rethinking sources of ethics.
Haraway has taught Women's Studies and the History of Science at the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University. Haraway's works have contributed to the study of both human-machine and human-animal relations. Her works have sparked debate in primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology. Haraway participated in a collaborative exchange with the feminist theorist Lynn Randolph from 1990 to 1996. Their engagement with specific ideas relating to feminism, technoscience, political consciousness, and other social issues, formed the images and narrative of Haraway's book Modest_Witness for which she received the Society for Social Studies of Science's (4S) Ludwik Fleck Prize in 1999. In 2000, Haraway was awarded the Society for Social Studies of Science's John Desmond Bernal Prize for her distinguished contributions to the field of science and technology studies. Haraway serves on the advisory board for numerous academic journals, including differences, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Contemporary Women's Writing, and Environmental Humanities.
Haraway has taught Women's Studies and the History of Science at the University of Hawaii and Johns Hopkins University. Haraway's works have contributed to the study of both human-machine and human-animal relations. Her works have sparked debate in primatology, philosophy, and developmental biology. Haraway participated in a collaborative exchange with the feminist theorist Lynn Randolph from 1990 to 1996. Their engagement with specific ideas relating to feminism, technoscience, political consciousness, and other social issues, formed the images and narrative of Haraway's book Modest_Witness for which she received the Society for Social Studies of Science's (4S) Ludwik Fleck Prize in 1999. In 2000, Haraway was awarded the Society for Social Studies of Science's John Desmond Bernal Prize for her distinguished contributions to the field of science and technology studies. Haraway serves on the advisory board for numerous academic journals, including differences, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Contemporary Women's Writing, and Environmental Humanities.
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August 15, 2008
"I am not a posthumanist; I am who I become with companion species, who and which make a mess out of categories in the making of kin and kind" (19). (she is, rather, "nonhumanist": see 92-93)
"The coming into being of something unexpected, something new and free, something outside the rules of function and calculation, something not ruled by the logic of the reproduction of the same, is what training with each other is about" (223).
Great praise is due Haraway for her use and interchange with so much material lacking in animal theory, namely, current research (not just the usual von Uexküll and Kohler) of biologists, ethologists, and geneticists, and for her close attention to on-the-ground experience. We animal thinkers should be aware that deep nonanthropocentric research and thinking has been going on in communities with whom we virtually never speak or think! Let us have the biologists if they will have us! Also to be praised: her attention to the ordinary, mundane (watchwords for Haraway here) that includes both naturalcultural (Haraway's locution) canine/human ecology and history and, above all, actual animals, who are not ciphers (as is Derrida's cat), but rather actual fellow "critters" (Haraway's word, smartly chosen to avoid "creatures") with desires and needs that can affect the sufficiently attentive, sufficiently open human (here I would have liked to have seen DH work with Acampora's humanimal phenomenology of "bodiment"). The human disaggregates to a certain degree in this relationship that, perhaps, is so active, so transformative, that it should not be called "relationship." I would have liked more Deleuze and Guattari to get a thicker sense of the work this does, since, without their thought, I often felt that Haraway was all too frequently just worrying the same points, or giving me a variant of their thought with a different vocabulary (e.g., "reciprocal induction" (228)). Instead, there's not much D&G in this at all, despite how much their work on mobile molecular assemblages works with Haraway's becoming-with dogs in training: I can't help but feel that DH dismisses D&G as retaliation for their dismissal of housepets and, indeed, their misogynist sneer at old women (I can't help but feel this, but I can't help but recognize the unfairness of my own feeling, especially given the smart notes on 314).
Also, When Species Meet is throughout insufficiently attentive to violence, even when it attends to actual violence (see DH's proposals for animal experimentation, e.g., 75, which move but do not convince me). WSpeciesM is especially inattentive to what Cary Wolfe called "the logic of the pet," by which Haraway's dog Cayenne gets singled out for this mutually transforming care, effected in part through the rewards of liver cookies. Whose liver gets eaten? Who or what is being punished for the knowledge this eaten liver should memorialize?
At the same time, most animal work--Wolfe, the rights and liberation people, (me), and, above all, Derrida--is at heart an animal victimology. Its strength is its seriousness. But there's so much left out when we think only in terms of the murderous reaction that forms l'animot. As DH presents it, Derrida errs by foreclosing the work of ethologists and humanimal mitsein by leaving his cat as a great mystery, virtually a symbol--despite JD's assurances of nonexemplarity--of the nonpower at the heart of power. What would have happened if JD had talked of playing with his cat?
A final, necessary point in this disjointed review: while the abundant biographical material--emails to canine listservs, a memoir of her father's senescent decline--at once displays and enacts the interactive communities of being-as-becoming so key to her arguments, I can't help--for now--feeling that a good 100 pages of the book is filler: this is likely theoretically retrograde of me, and perhaps even anti-feminist (see Jane Tompkins' famous "Me and My Shadow").
"The coming into being of something unexpected, something new and free, something outside the rules of function and calculation, something not ruled by the logic of the reproduction of the same, is what training with each other is about" (223).
Great praise is due Haraway for her use and interchange with so much material lacking in animal theory, namely, current research (not just the usual von Uexküll and Kohler) of biologists, ethologists, and geneticists, and for her close attention to on-the-ground experience. We animal thinkers should be aware that deep nonanthropocentric research and thinking has been going on in communities with whom we virtually never speak or think! Let us have the biologists if they will have us! Also to be praised: her attention to the ordinary, mundane (watchwords for Haraway here) that includes both naturalcultural (Haraway's locution) canine/human ecology and history and, above all, actual animals, who are not ciphers (as is Derrida's cat), but rather actual fellow "critters" (Haraway's word, smartly chosen to avoid "creatures") with desires and needs that can affect the sufficiently attentive, sufficiently open human (here I would have liked to have seen DH work with Acampora's humanimal phenomenology of "bodiment"). The human disaggregates to a certain degree in this relationship that, perhaps, is so active, so transformative, that it should not be called "relationship." I would have liked more Deleuze and Guattari to get a thicker sense of the work this does, since, without their thought, I often felt that Haraway was all too frequently just worrying the same points, or giving me a variant of their thought with a different vocabulary (e.g., "reciprocal induction" (228)). Instead, there's not much D&G in this at all, despite how much their work on mobile molecular assemblages works with Haraway's becoming-with dogs in training: I can't help but feel that DH dismisses D&G as retaliation for their dismissal of housepets and, indeed, their misogynist sneer at old women (I can't help but feel this, but I can't help but recognize the unfairness of my own feeling, especially given the smart notes on 314).
Also, When Species Meet is throughout insufficiently attentive to violence, even when it attends to actual violence (see DH's proposals for animal experimentation, e.g., 75, which move but do not convince me). WSpeciesM is especially inattentive to what Cary Wolfe called "the logic of the pet," by which Haraway's dog Cayenne gets singled out for this mutually transforming care, effected in part through the rewards of liver cookies. Whose liver gets eaten? Who or what is being punished for the knowledge this eaten liver should memorialize?
At the same time, most animal work--Wolfe, the rights and liberation people, (me), and, above all, Derrida--is at heart an animal victimology. Its strength is its seriousness. But there's so much left out when we think only in terms of the murderous reaction that forms l'animot. As DH presents it, Derrida errs by foreclosing the work of ethologists and humanimal mitsein by leaving his cat as a great mystery, virtually a symbol--despite JD's assurances of nonexemplarity--of the nonpower at the heart of power. What would have happened if JD had talked of playing with his cat?
A final, necessary point in this disjointed review: while the abundant biographical material--emails to canine listservs, a memoir of her father's senescent decline--at once displays and enacts the interactive communities of being-as-becoming so key to her arguments, I can't help--for now--feeling that a good 100 pages of the book is filler: this is likely theoretically retrograde of me, and perhaps even anti-feminist (see Jane Tompkins' famous "Me and My Shadow").
September 9, 2010
If my professor keeps assigning books like this her class may be the death of me.
I can't even begin on the atrocity that is this book. Instead, I'll let Haraway speak for herself:
87 "For example, what about instituting changes in daily lab schedules so that even rats or mice get to learn how to do new things that make their lives more interesting."
294 "Katie and Mischa reported a solemn, rather than festive, sharing of bits of placenta - cooked with onions - in which friends shared nutrients needs by mother and baby at this moment of beginnings."
87 "We damn well do have the obligation to make those lab apes' lives as full as we can (raise the taxes to cover the cost!"
And my personal favorite (get ready ladies and gentlemen - fasten your seat belt because...)
81 "Meat eating is like the Holocaust; meat eating is the Holocaust."
Why, Graduate School? Why?
I can't even begin on the atrocity that is this book. Instead, I'll let Haraway speak for herself:
87 "For example, what about instituting changes in daily lab schedules so that even rats or mice get to learn how to do new things that make their lives more interesting."
294 "Katie and Mischa reported a solemn, rather than festive, sharing of bits of placenta - cooked with onions - in which friends shared nutrients needs by mother and baby at this moment of beginnings."
87 "We damn well do have the obligation to make those lab apes' lives as full as we can (raise the taxes to cover the cost!"
And my personal favorite (get ready ladies and gentlemen - fasten your seat belt because...)
81 "Meat eating is like the Holocaust; meat eating is the Holocaust."
Why, Graduate School? Why?
February 7, 2022
As long as one does not misunderstand her writing, Haraway actually makes a lot of sense, and I mostly agree with her thoughts and arguments; it's just that the book as a whole leaves a lot to be desired. Haraway is what I'd call a crazy dog lady. I was a bit disappointed by her preoccupation with dogs - her dogs in particular - and the sport of agility, especially for a book of such a general title (I guess I am just not a fellow dog-crazy person.) But what ultimately lowered my rating was the second part of the book, which read rather like scraps and pieces of random stuff thrown in together in short, disjointed, and relatively uninteresting chapters.
On a side note, every time Haraway uses the term "dogmatic" I wonder if it's a pun... because, you know, Haraway and her dogs :')
On a side note, every time Haraway uses the term "dogmatic" I wonder if it's a pun... because, you know, Haraway and her dogs :')
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May 10, 2024haraway boldly asks the question: What If You Had a Dog
November 5, 2019
Haraway yra akademijos taisykles išaugusi akademinė rašytoja. Ne atmetusi su panieka kaip kažkokius tuščius ritualus, bet išaugusi. Nes tas, ką ji nori pasakyti, reikalauja ne tik peržiūrėti ir perinterpretuoti poststruktūralistus, bet dar ir papasakoti asmeninių istorijų - apie tėvą, apie jo kompanjonus ramentus ir vežimėlį, apie sportą, kurį pati sportuoja ir savo kompanjoną šunį, su kuriuo sportuoja. Reikalauja ir daugybės socialinių ekonominių, kartais tiesiog buitinių pavyzdžių. Bet prie kritinės beletristikos šita knyga vis tiek nepriartėja (prie tokios "kaip čia mes va neteisingai visi gyvenam ir kaip sistema mus žlugdo"). Kažkokią mįslė - kaip nepriartėja, ir baltas pavydas tuo pačiu.
January 24, 2025
Last year, I missed a session of a graduate art history class because my upstairs neighbor’s fire alarm went off. The issue was not any real fire, but my dog—who has good reasons to fear fire alarms—cowering in the corner, unable to stop shaking or let me out of her sight, even after the noise had stopped. Completely unable to leave her, I emailed the professor an honest explanation. When I next saw him, he was incredibly understanding, and suggested I read this book.
Haraway, using her love for her dogs as a jumping-off point, provides her thoughts on everything from Deleuze to the history of Australian shepherds to cloning to the world’s chicken-focused industries (the chickens were my favorite chapter). Her book does not claim to provide answers but is instead consistently thought-provoking. This book works, not as a definitive authority on dogs or as a source of new information, but as a quiet series of meditations and reflections on what it truly means to be a companion animal, for all parties.
Haraway, using her love for her dogs as a jumping-off point, provides her thoughts on everything from Deleuze to the history of Australian shepherds to cloning to the world’s chicken-focused industries (the chickens were my favorite chapter). Her book does not claim to provide answers but is instead consistently thought-provoking. This book works, not as a definitive authority on dogs or as a source of new information, but as a quiet series of meditations and reflections on what it truly means to be a companion animal, for all parties.
December 14, 2022
"O céu não caiu, ainda não."
Cada capítulo é uma deliciosa provocação a repensar nós, nossas espécies companheiras, nosso mundo.
Cada capítulo é uma deliciosa provocação a repensar nós, nossas espécies companheiras, nosso mundo.
June 18, 2025
En wat nu als de filosoof antwoord gaf – wanneer dieren terugkijken?
‘“En wat nu als het dier antwoord gaf” is de titel die Derrida een lezing uit 1997 meegaf. Hij speurt daarin het aloude filosofische schandaal na dat “het dier” slechts in staat acht te reageren als een dier-machine. (…) Hij kwam tot de rand van respect, tot de beweging naar respectere, maar belandde op een zijspoor door zijn tekstuele canon van de westerse filosofie en literatuur, en (daaraan gekoppeld) doordat hij zich zorgen maakte over het feit dat hij naakt voor zijn kat stond. (…) Bij zijn kat liet Derrida echter een eenvoudige verplichting van metgezelsoorten na: hij werd niet nieuwsgierig naar wat de kat daar eigenlijk stond te doen, voelen, denken, of naar wat ze hem misschien beschikbaar stelde door die ochtend naar hem om te zien. (…) Daarom was hij als filosoof aan het einde van de ochtend niets meer van, over of met de kat te weten gekomen dan hij daarvoor al wist; hoeveel beter hij de wortel van het schandaal, alsook zijn eigen tekstuele nalatenschap nu begreep maakt niet uit. Om werkelijk het antwoord van de kat op zijn aanwezigheid te beantwoorden zou het nodig zijn geweest de rijke edoch gemankeerde filosofische canon te verbinden met een riskant project: vragen waar deze kat die morgen om gaf, wat deze lichamelijke houdingen en visuele verstrengelingen zouden betekenen en waartoe ze zouden uitnodigen; maar ook lezen wat mensen die katten bestuderen te zeggen hebben en een duik nemen in de voortschrijdende kennis van de kat-kat- en kat-mens-gedragssemiotiek – wanneer soorten kennismaken. In plaats daarvan concentreerde hij zich erop dat hij zich in zijn blootje voor deze kat stond te schamen. Nieuwsgierigheid afgetroefd door schaamte, dat is geen goed voorteken voor autre-mondialisation.”
Donna J. Haraway begint waar Jacques Derrida eindigt. Haar veellagige kijk op metgezelsoorten moedigt me aan om opener in de wereld staan.
‘“En wat nu als het dier antwoord gaf” is de titel die Derrida een lezing uit 1997 meegaf. Hij speurt daarin het aloude filosofische schandaal na dat “het dier” slechts in staat acht te reageren als een dier-machine. (…) Hij kwam tot de rand van respect, tot de beweging naar respectere, maar belandde op een zijspoor door zijn tekstuele canon van de westerse filosofie en literatuur, en (daaraan gekoppeld) doordat hij zich zorgen maakte over het feit dat hij naakt voor zijn kat stond. (…) Bij zijn kat liet Derrida echter een eenvoudige verplichting van metgezelsoorten na: hij werd niet nieuwsgierig naar wat de kat daar eigenlijk stond te doen, voelen, denken, of naar wat ze hem misschien beschikbaar stelde door die ochtend naar hem om te zien. (…) Daarom was hij als filosoof aan het einde van de ochtend niets meer van, over of met de kat te weten gekomen dan hij daarvoor al wist; hoeveel beter hij de wortel van het schandaal, alsook zijn eigen tekstuele nalatenschap nu begreep maakt niet uit. Om werkelijk het antwoord van de kat op zijn aanwezigheid te beantwoorden zou het nodig zijn geweest de rijke edoch gemankeerde filosofische canon te verbinden met een riskant project: vragen waar deze kat die morgen om gaf, wat deze lichamelijke houdingen en visuele verstrengelingen zouden betekenen en waartoe ze zouden uitnodigen; maar ook lezen wat mensen die katten bestuderen te zeggen hebben en een duik nemen in de voortschrijdende kennis van de kat-kat- en kat-mens-gedragssemiotiek – wanneer soorten kennismaken. In plaats daarvan concentreerde hij zich erop dat hij zich in zijn blootje voor deze kat stond te schamen. Nieuwsgierigheid afgetroefd door schaamte, dat is geen goed voorteken voor autre-mondialisation.”
Donna J. Haraway begint waar Jacques Derrida eindigt. Haar veellagige kijk op metgezelsoorten moedigt me aan om opener in de wereld staan.
March 10, 2015
I enjoy Haraway's thinking, but this book was not my favorite. She mostly talks about dogs, dismisses middle-class privilege often while still acknowledging these violent power dynamics, and comes dangerously close to a kind of nihilism in some moments. She offers some pretty compelling suggestions for how to be more just as natural cultural subjects, but I just didn't feel she grounded herself in fieldwork enough. She jumps around a lot and seems to lose focus. Some of these chapters would have worked better as articles since I really didn't expect it to be so domestic dog heavy (based on the title), and for such a unique thinker, I was disappointed in some ways that she spent so much intellectual work on the dog, when I know her for work on primates and technologies. That's just my bias, though. Her histories and discussions about and with her research participants, impassioned dog lay-scientists and experts, was pretty interesting.
November 25, 2010
I suppose it helps that I like dogs and training dogs, but I love some of the ideas in this book relating to companion species and communicating with nonhuman others. The book irritates me intensely too, but that's mostly because of the lack of a comprehensive bibliography. Occasionally the language gets a bit much (almost too "poetic") but there are a lot of interesting ideas here, and a lot of other sources mentioned that I now need to read in order to get some more depth in my understanding.
January 12, 2013
I was surprised that this book focused so heavily on dogs and domestic species. The introduction felt promising with an interesting read of Derrida's "The Animal Therefore I Am" and an intense critique of Deleuze and Guattari's "Becoming Animal." (Which I do not fully agree with but I appreciate the perspective). Unfortunately, the book felt centered around Haraway's own proclivities, including purebred dogs and agility competitions, as opposed to delving into a thread of theory and exploring its manifestations in the world.
November 24, 2020
What a weird book, formally not conceptually. The threads of this book are sort of loosely brought together, with moments of brilliance but nothing resembling a final coherence. This is intentional and is a part of her epistemological / political project of messy multi-species engagements but, which I get but which still left me feeling unsatisfied.
April 4, 2010
Great for dog lovers and theory-dweebs alike.
June 23, 2024
Haraway is always a curious and skillful writer. Here, however, I found the defense of meat-eating ("there is no way to eat and not to kill") kind of shockingly undertheorized and is making me question "entanglement" as a useful theoretical driver. Like, yes, humans and non-humans live entangled lives. We change when we encounter each other. This seems inadequate for 2024, no? As Eva Giraud asks, What Comes after Entanglement?: Activism, Anthropocentrism, and an Ethics of Exclusion
December 27, 2023
donna by beloved
December 19, 2019
A good enough description of the book comes from Haraway herself:
Section I is appropriately called "We have never been human", riffing on Latour. These "entanglements of beings" are many indeed:
Haraway is a terrific writer and she's found great case-studies, but (as usual) there seemed something off about the theoretical work she actually manages to accomplish. This perhaps is simply a result of the book not being a linear text building up to something - as she admits herself, "No chapter has a bottom line, but they all have barely contained traffic between the lines and between the foretext and endnotes in an attempt to engage a cosmopolitical conversation" (301).
Her ornamental style (which is a large part of what makes her such a compelling writer for me) unfortunately makes the prose less precise, giving the impression that too often she's substituting "pithy slogans" and elliptical proclamations for the rigorous and sustained working-through of ideas. So while she claims to share with Don Ihde the basic commitment that "Insofar as I use or employ a technology, I am used by and employed by that technology as well" (250), she simply moves on to "Therefore, technologies are not mediations, something in between us and another bit of the world" and then her case-study. There's no explanation of what this means or what its scope is. Perhaps the reader is simply supposed to be go look at Ihde's work, but that doesn't tell us what Haraway thinks or how that should affect and be affected by a reading of her case-study. But that's Haraway!
In addition, in her eagerness to call for an appreciation of complexity and real-world distinctions, she seems to give short shrift to animal rights activists, whose demands she seems intent on seeing as too insensitive to complexity, rather than as creative and strategic. A strange lacuna.
When Species Meet is about the entanglements of beings in technoculture that work through reciprocal inductions to shape companion species. Certain domestic animals have played the starring roles in this book, but it should be clear by now that many categories of beings, including technological assemblages and college students, count as “species” enmeshed in the practice of learning how to be worldly, how to respond, how to practice respect. (281-2)
Section I is appropriately called "We have never been human", riffing on Latour. These "entanglements of beings" are many indeed:
Almost eight years ago, I found myself in unexpected and out-of-bounds love with a hot red dog I named Cayenne. It is not surprising that she acted as a kin maker in a middle-class U.S. home in the early twenty-first century, but it has been an awakening to track how many sorts of kin and kind this love has materialized, how many sorts of consequences flow from her kiss. The sticky threads proliferating from this woman–dog tangle have led to Israeli settler ranches on the Golan Heights in Syria, French bulldogs in Paris, prison projects in the midwestern United States, investment analyses of canine commodity culture on the Internet, mouse labs and gene research projects, baseball and agility sports fields, departmental dinners, camera-toting whales off Alaska, industrial chicken-processing plants, history classrooms in a community college, art exhibitions in Wellington, and farm-supply participants in a feral cat trap-and-release program. Official and demotic philosophers, biologists of many kinds, photographers, cartoonists, cultural theorists, dog trainers, activists in technoculture, journalists, human family, students, friends, colleagues, anthropologists, literary scholars, and historians all enable me to track the consequences of love and play between Cayenne and me. (300-1)
Haraway is a terrific writer and she's found great case-studies, but (as usual) there seemed something off about the theoretical work she actually manages to accomplish. This perhaps is simply a result of the book not being a linear text building up to something - as she admits herself, "No chapter has a bottom line, but they all have barely contained traffic between the lines and between the foretext and endnotes in an attempt to engage a cosmopolitical conversation" (301).
Her ornamental style (which is a large part of what makes her such a compelling writer for me) unfortunately makes the prose less precise, giving the impression that too often she's substituting "pithy slogans" and elliptical proclamations for the rigorous and sustained working-through of ideas. So while she claims to share with Don Ihde the basic commitment that "Insofar as I use or employ a technology, I am used by and employed by that technology as well" (250), she simply moves on to "Therefore, technologies are not mediations, something in between us and another bit of the world" and then her case-study. There's no explanation of what this means or what its scope is. Perhaps the reader is simply supposed to be go look at Ihde's work, but that doesn't tell us what Haraway thinks or how that should affect and be affected by a reading of her case-study. But that's Haraway!
In addition, in her eagerness to call for an appreciation of complexity and real-world distinctions, she seems to give short shrift to animal rights activists, whose demands she seems intent on seeing as too insensitive to complexity, rather than as creative and strategic. A strange lacuna.
April 15, 2014
There are some fantastic ideas in here about ecological awareness and responsibility. About compassion, empathy, and respect for other species, especially those considered "companion." About being able to exercise this respect, understanding, and consideration of these species without anthropomorphism or assimilation. She ascribes different species as Other, significant beings necessarily different from humans, but no less complex. She illustrates these points through extensive -- and I mean extensive -- examples and case studies. This is where stars got knocked off for me. As a busy grad student with not a lot of time for meandering texts, though still very interested and curious about topics of ecology and inter-species co-being, I would have rather she got more to the point. I had to do a lot of skimming to get to the meat of Haraway's ideas -- history and practice of Agility is mildly engaging in passing, but not the philosophical fat I was after. Fortunately, this text is very skim-able for those like me who are very interested in Haraway's theory, but not so interested in the long history behind breeding domestic shepherding dogs.
October 30, 2016
This was recommended to me by a colleague in light of some other recent books I've read and because the problematizations of the definition (or definitions) and distinctions of human and non-human animals have been on my mind a great deal recently. Overall, I enjoyed the book and found some of Haraway's arguments and lines of questioning to be interesting and efficacious. However, her prose had a tendency to wander making some of the (often) disparate connections she was attempting to make difficult to follow.
December 2, 2009
Donna Harraway changed my life with her "Cyborg Manifesto" but this book had only passing moments of brilliance, buried under copied and pasted emails about her dog's agility training. A good read if you are interested in animal studies.
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February 23, 2011Kind of weird but fascinating.
July 30, 2025
I think you have to already be an established scholar to get away with writing a book like this. From the title, I expected a holistic treatment of human-animal interactions (alternatively: entanglements, knottings, becomings with). Instead, this book reads like Haraway mashed together a bunch of her thoughts about animal stuff she happened to come across or become involved in. I expected the material about the sport of agility, because I've read her Companion Species Manifesto, but the other cases she picks up on feel kind of arbitrary.
Plus, there's quite a lot of personal anecdotes and communications that are included with little to no explanation of their relevance to her overall project in this book. I acknowledge that Haraway's writing style puts her interesting ideas beyond my comprehension sometimes, but in this book there were times when I could understand what she was telling me, just not why. While reading, I showed my grad school classmates little snippets, usually picking the weirdest, funniest parts, and the response was basically ??? with a lot of flabbergasted laughter.
All that said, there were rare moments when I got a glimmer of insight. Most of these happened for me during the introduction and conclusion. I wish she'd done more work showing me what her different case studies were supposed to be contributing to her argument, but I suppose Haraway and the likes of Anna Tsing, whom she cites, would respond by saying something about assemblages and staying with irresolution (in this book's extended metaphor about eating: indigestion).
Plus, there's quite a lot of personal anecdotes and communications that are included with little to no explanation of their relevance to her overall project in this book. I acknowledge that Haraway's writing style puts her interesting ideas beyond my comprehension sometimes, but in this book there were times when I could understand what she was telling me, just not why. While reading, I showed my grad school classmates little snippets, usually picking the weirdest, funniest parts, and the response was basically ??? with a lot of flabbergasted laughter.
All that said, there were rare moments when I got a glimmer of insight. Most of these happened for me during the introduction and conclusion. I wish she'd done more work showing me what her different case studies were supposed to be contributing to her argument, but I suppose Haraway and the likes of Anna Tsing, whom she cites, would respond by saying something about assemblages and staying with irresolution (in this book's extended metaphor about eating: indigestion).
March 28, 2023
Haraway argues that traditional distinctions between humans and other animals, such as those based on intelligence, culture, or emotion, are inadequate and misleading. Instead, she proposes a new framework for thinking about human-animal relations that emphasizes the entanglements and mutual dependencies between different species. She argues that these relationships are shaped not only by biological factors but also by cultural and historical processes, such as the development of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the rise of industrial capitalism.
The book is organized around a series of case studies that explore different ways in which humans and animals have come together and interacted over time. These case studies range from the use of animals in scientific research to the cultural significance of pets and the complex relationships between humans and non-human primates. Throughout the book, Haraway emphasizes the ways in which these interactions challenge our traditional categories and highlight the fluid and dynamic nature of species boundaries.
The book is organized around a series of case studies that explore different ways in which humans and animals have come together and interacted over time. These case studies range from the use of animals in scientific research to the cultural significance of pets and the complex relationships between humans and non-human primates. Throughout the book, Haraway emphasizes the ways in which these interactions challenge our traditional categories and highlight the fluid and dynamic nature of species boundaries.
April 13, 2023
"When Species Meet" is a classic text in the field of animal studies and posthumanism/more-than-human studies, and so an unavoidable text for those interested in it. Having heard a lot about it, I think I expected something more cohesive, like a monograph. The book is really inconsistent. The opening, titular chapter was the most focused and where a lot of Harraway's key ideas are articulated. The remaining chapters (of which there are 11) feel more like opportunities for further development, but not all are on the same level of interesting. I still wrote out a lot of quotes and took notes from the rest of the book, but these were notably very scattered. One has to read quite generously at some points in order to be "rewarded" with these key thoughts of Haraways, as they often come unexpectedly, mid-paragraph as she shifts from personal contemplation to the more philosophical and theoretical discussion that I was led to believe "When Species Meet" is. I would probably recommend parts of this book more than the text in its entirety.
April 27, 2021
There's so much wrong things with this book, like equalizing eating meat to the holocaust, but another great problem here is trying to equal humans to other species.
No, we are not the same. Never was, never will. The life of a worker or a farmer is not even in discussion of being equated to that of an animal (maybe of the parasitic bourgeoisie but that is another issue).
And don't misunderstand me, it is the fact that we are superior that gives us a responsability and obligation. Only a sadist or a pathological mind would kill or mistreat for the sake of fun. It even disgusts me that thought. But let's be clear: a valuable human life cannot be put in the same scale of value with that of a rat or a dog. Not even a lesser friend is comparable to a cat.
And let me tell you, if you think otherwise, you are one of the many problems that explain why capitalism still is ongoing (and that you need friends and must go to therapy).
No, we are not the same. Never was, never will. The life of a worker or a farmer is not even in discussion of being equated to that of an animal (maybe of the parasitic bourgeoisie but that is another issue).
And don't misunderstand me, it is the fact that we are superior that gives us a responsability and obligation. Only a sadist or a pathological mind would kill or mistreat for the sake of fun. It even disgusts me that thought. But let's be clear: a valuable human life cannot be put in the same scale of value with that of a rat or a dog. Not even a lesser friend is comparable to a cat.
And let me tell you, if you think otherwise, you are one of the many problems that explain why capitalism still is ongoing (and that you need friends and must go to therapy).
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June 29, 2022The book is an interesting reading as it forces us to rethink our relations with the other than human. Haraway, starting her reflections from her experiences of agility practices with her dogs, presents the concept of companion species, a term that encompasses the species with whom we generally share our existences - or those animals considered to be pets. Rather for Haraway, in this play of relations and interrelations across companion species technologies, commerce, organisms, landscapes, people, practices” are also included. Haraway also argues that the human is continuously made and remade in these series of interspecies relationalities that are based on interdependence. These encounters of companion species, when based on respect and recognition, are a way to counterbalance anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism.
July 26, 2024
Det har inte gått snabbt att läsa. Haraways språk är onödigt akademiskt och högtravande, om än bitvis såväl poetiskt som humoristiskt. Det här är inte en lättläst bok - men det varken behöver den eller utger den sig för att vara. Snarare vill den krångla till, låta saker krocka, utforska det som händer när varelser möts över artgränser på sätt som inte alltid är harmoniska. Som en person som lever i nära relationer över artgränser har Haraways gett mig nya perspektiv och nyanser jag kanske annars inte hittat, även om hon och jag inte alltid är överens. Men det är kanske just det som är poängen - att världen blir rikare när vi är olika, när våra olikheter får mötas och samexistera utan att nödvändigtvis hitta en helt harmonisk lösning.
November 28, 2021
I deeply appreciated every book by Haraway I've read so far but this one, well it could have easily been a 20 word paper and noting of value would have been lost. For the most part the titular meeting between species in its more abstract and theoretical understanding, this third perspective in on the anthropological study of the incorporation of other lifeforms in human society is absent but there is a lot of pointless information about the author and her dogs, agility and the people that do this sport with their dogs...lots of imputs that I fail to understand how they lead to something larger, something worth to write books like this about, all the talking about "me and my dog" should have not been the main starting point of the whole book and the point of focus the author kept coming back to.
September 19, 2022
For me, this book is a continuation of her 2003 book, "Companion Species Manifesto." In "When Species Meet," Haraway provides more case studies/examples about human entanglement with non-human animals in addition to her experiences with her dogs in agility. I see much overlap with Val Plumwood's ecofeminist environmental philosophy - the need to begin with interspecies communication to build an ethics for multispecies flourishing. I found Part I to be the most philosophically substantive and Parts II and III to be case studies. However, the last chapter had some great nuggets that wrapped up the book. To summarize the book, it is about the concept of "becoming with."
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June 10, 2024Interesting, with some theory (can I call it theory? This did not feel like a very theory-heavy book, yet I read it believing it to be such) I'll definitely be thinking more about. Not everything was relevant to me but Haraway is a convincing writer and I enjoyed my time even in those parts I knew wouldn't further my own thinking all that much. The first 100 pages or so were particularly great, but I wish that Haraway had focused more on other species than just dogs. There are some other animals mentioned as well, but with such a strong focus on the inter- and intra-actions between species, you'd think that non-dogs (and non-humans) would play a bigger role.
December 15, 2024
Não rolou muito... uma pena, eu tinha altas expectativas.
A abordagem da interação entre espécies e a não supremacia dos humanos pareceu rasa - talvez por ter lido autores indígenas, não veio como nenhuma novidade para mim. Achei até surpreendente que Haraway mal cita indígenas e suas cosmovisões.
Os capítulos são um tanto desconexos e o que o texto traz muitas vezes é mais lúdico do que prático ou analítico. Tive que ler rapidamente diversos trechos que pareciam intermináveis... acho que, apesar de gostar de animais, não me interesso tanto assim por cachorros e os trocadilhos que Haraway propõe.
A abordagem da interação entre espécies e a não supremacia dos humanos pareceu rasa - talvez por ter lido autores indígenas, não veio como nenhuma novidade para mim. Achei até surpreendente que Haraway mal cita indígenas e suas cosmovisões.
Os capítulos são um tanto desconexos e o que o texto traz muitas vezes é mais lúdico do que prático ou analítico. Tive que ler rapidamente diversos trechos que pareciam intermináveis... acho que, apesar de gostar de animais, não me interesso tanto assim por cachorros e os trocadilhos que Haraway propõe.
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