Co-occupation and co-constructed habits, routines, and sense of place: An argument for exploration of human-canine interaction

ABSTRACT

Since its inception, occupational science has explored the phenomenon of humans doing together, including humans doing with other humans and with objects. However, it has yet to explore humans doing with animals. Given animals are living, sentient beings that have the potential to greatly impact human occupation, they cannot be equated to inanimate objects or simply viewed as part of the environment or context. The purpose of this article is to establish the relevance of human-animal interaction to occupational science and open a new line of inquiry and understanding of human-animal occupation. The paper provides background information about human-animal interaction and introduces the impact of canines on occupational engagement, habits, routines, and sense of place. An insight into how human-canine interaction may be reconceptualized as human-animal co-occupation is also presented. Finally, implications for the discipline are discussed. Given that this is a novel topic within the discipline, this paper introduces just some of the ways canines impact occupation.

从一开始，生活活动科学就探索了人类一起做事的现象，包括与其他人做事以及用物体做事。然而，它还没有探索人类涉及动物做事。鉴于动物是有生命的、有知觉的生物，它们有可能极大地影响着人类活动。它们不能被视为与非生命物体等同或被简单地看作环境或背景的一部分。本文的目的是建立人与动物互动与生活活动科学的相关性，并开辟对人-动物活动的探究和理解的新思路。这篇论文提供了关于人与动物互动的背景信息，并介绍了犬类对人类活动参与、习惯、惯例和地方感的影响。还介绍了如何将人类与犬科动物的相互作用重新概念化为人类与动物的共同活动。最后，讨论了对这一学科的影响。鉴于这是该学科中的一个新话题，本文仅介绍了犬类影响人类活动的一些方面。

Desde sus inicios, la ciencia ocupacional ha explorado el fenómeno de seres humanos que actúan juntos, en el que se incluyen los seres humanos que actúan con otros seres humanos y con objetos. Sin embargo, todavía no ha estudiado a los seres humanos en su interacción con animales. Dado que los animales son seres vivos y sensibles que tienen el potencial de influir enormemente en la ocupación humana, no pueden equipararse a objetos inanimados ni considerarse simplemente como parte del entorno o el contexto. Este artículo se propuso establecer la relevancia de la interacción ser humano-animal para la ciencia del trabajo y abrir una nueva línea de investigación y comprensión de la ocupación humano-animal. El artículo proporciona antecedentes sobre la interacción entre humanos y animales e introduce el impacto de los caninos en la participación ocupacional, los hábitos, las rutinas y el sentido del lugar. Además, se presenta una perspectiva sobre cómo la interacción humano-canina puede reconceptualizarse como una ocupación conjunta humano-animal. Por último, se discuten las implicaciones que esto conlleva para la disciplina. Dado que se trata de un tema novedoso dentro de la misma, este artículo presenta sólo algunas de las formas en que los caninos influyen en la ocupación.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational science
• Human-animal interaction
• Human-animal bond
• Canines
• Co-occupation

Acknowledgements

I humbly give homage to the tribes who first inhabited North Carolina prior to white colonization, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation that resided in Chapel Hill, and the west and north west regions, before the University of NC at Chapel Hill was built, as well as the tribal communities that resided across all the ‘small’ and large towns of NC prior to colonization: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Sappony, Catawba, Tuscarora, Waccamaw Siouan, Lumbee, Coharie, Halawa-Saponi, and Meherrin.

This paper is based on a presentation delivered at the 2021 Virtual Conference of the Society for the Study of Occupation: USA. I thank Dr. Nancy Bagatell for her feedback and support of this article. I also thank Dr. Antoine Bailliard and fellow doctoral students Susie Agostine, Allison Calhoun, Kierra Peak, and Ya Cing Syu for their thoughtful comments that supported the development of this idea.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).