Conversational storytelling research methods: cats, dogs, and humans in pet capitalism

ABSTRACT

This essay is about methods of interpretation of conversational storytelling. By doing what Donna Haraway calls ‘multispecies storytelling’ research involving humans, dogs, and various animal organisations, we use storytelling to study what we call ‘pet capitalism’. We address the problems of interpreting story fragments in multispecies storytelling conversations in order to explore the Tamara-Land of organisational contexts of animal organisations within pet capitalism. We explore what Linda Hitchin calls ‘untold stories’, such as the euthanasia consequences of pet capitalism. We examine what those untold stories tell us about the animal-human-organisation’s resistance to being researched as pet capitalism. We apply Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialism and Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology to the problem of intersubjectivity. Finally, we discuss implications of our explorations for the intersubjectivity of storytelling conversations which have unstoryable and unnarrativizable aspects of the multispecies storytelling of pet capitalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Pet capitalism
• antenarrative
• conversational storytelling
• ethnomethodology
• unstoryable
• unnarrativizable

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge our methods have limitations. We acknowledge our own complicity in pet capitalism, and that our abductions-inductions-deductions definitely need much more systematic research, which we invite you to do.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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2. Telegraph.co.uk ‘Calling animals “pets” is insulting, academics claim’ by John Bingham, 28 April 2011, accessed Oct 8 2019 at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8479391/Calling-animals-pets-is-insulting-academics-claim.html.

3. ASPCA.com ‘Pet Statistics’ access Oct 5 2019 at https://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake-and-surrender/pet-statistics.

4. HumaneSociety.org ‘Pets by the Numbers,’ accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/pets-numbers.

5. Dosomething.org ‘11 Facts About Animal Homelessness’, accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-animal-homelessness.

6. PETA.org ‘Euthanasia’, accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.peta.org/issues/animal-companion-issues/overpopulation/euthanasia/.

7. PschchologyToday.com ‘The Puzzling Geography of Animal Shelter Dog Euthanasia’ by Hal Herzog, May 11 2018, accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-us/201805/the-puzzling-geography-animal-shelter-dog-euthanasia.

8. NZhearald.co.nz ‘Euthanasia numbers steadily decreasing’ 23 October 2010 by Kieran Hash, accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10682665.

9. Wikipedia.com. ‘Cats in New Zealand’ accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_New_Zealand.

10. OnGreenPlanet.org ‘How the U.S. Compares to Other Countries in Terms of Caring for Homeless Animals’ by Jena Mazzio, 2014, accessed Oct 5 2019 at https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries-in-terms-of-caring-for-homeless-animals/.

11. Forbes.com ‘Dogs, Cats And Climate Change: What’s Your Pet’s Carbon Pawprint?’ by Jeff McMahon, 2 August 2017, accessed Oct 6 2019 at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/08/02/whats-your-dogs-carbon-pawprint/#33724afd13a6.

12. SacBee.com ‘How your pet is contributing to global warming’ by Ryan Sabalow & Dale Kasler, Aug 2 2017, accessed Oct 6 2019 at https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article164990657.html#storylink=cpy.

13. TreeHugger.com ‘Cats, dogs responsible for up to 30% of meat environmental impact in US’ by Melissa Breyer Aug 3 2017, accessed Oct 6 2019 at https://www.treehugger.com/pets/cats-dogs-meat-environmental-impact-in-US.html.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge that we have received no funding at all for this research.

Notes on contributors

David M. Boje

David M. Boje Ph.D. is a Professor at Aalborg's Business College. He teaches qualitative storytelling science methods at Cabrini University in Philadelphia. He is editor-in-chief of the Business Storytelling Encyclopedia.  Boje gives invited keynote presentations on storytelling science, water crises, and the global climate crisis, all around the world.

Grace Ann Rosile

Grace Ann Rosile, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Management at New Mexico State University. She studies organizational storytelling, Ensemble processes, indigenous ethics, and pedagogy. She is author of numerous academic articles and book chapters, most recently focused on Ensemble Leadership through Ensemble Storytelling. She is founder of HorseSense At Work, offering management development and teamwork training. She also wrote and developed 7 educational films and edited one book (2016) on “Tribal Wisdom for Business Ethics.”