Human-Horse Relations and the Ethics of Knowing

This book explores how equestrians are highly invested in the idea of profound connection between horse and human and focuses on the ethical problem of knowing horses. In describing how 'true' connection with horses matters, Rosalie Jones McVey investigates what sort of thing comes to count as a 'good relationship' and how riders work to get there. Drawing on fieldwork in the British horse world, she illuminates the ways in which equestrian culture instils the idea that horse people should know their horses better. Using horsemanship as one exemplary instance where 'truth' holds ethical traction, the book demonstrates the importance of epistemology in late modern ethical life. It also raises the question of whether, and how, the concept of truth should matter to multispecies ethnographers in their ethnographic representations of animals.

Rosalie Jones McVey is a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK. A social anthropologist, her interests lie in the anthropology of ethics, human/animal relations, and cognition. She has worked around the world as a horse trainer for a number of years.

Introduction: #Two Hearts and Tall Tales 1 Who Belongs in the Horse World Now? 2 "Learn From the Horse, Don't Label Him!" 3 Articulating Equine Characters and Human Virtues 4 Infantilisation and the Ethics of the Un-real 5 Qualifying the Centaur Conclusion: Never Straight from the Horse's Mouth