Our Process
Arriving at this Topic
What questions/thoughts did you have going into this project/interview?
What did you find interesting about the topic initially?
Emily: The impetus for the direction we took with our project was seeing several advertisements in a spirituality newspaper for women who called themselves “animal communicators.” We were curious what exactly they meant when they claimed they could communicate with animals, and if there were others in the Puget Sound area like them.
I personally was extremely skeptical of these women’s claims but I thought the idea was intriguing and was curious where they were coming from. I also thought it was interesting that one of the women who claimed to be able to communicate with animals had veterinary certification, because there is often such a dichotomy between empirical, scientific training and spirituality.
We wanted to approach our research from an academic as well as a practical angle so we met with the UW’s animal studies librarian to investigate what academic writing there might be relating to our topic. We came up empty-handed other than a possible contact who had worked with an animal communicator, so we moved on to contacting the animal communicators we had learned about.
Audrey:
I was curious to explore this topic, especially due to the "ridiculousness" often associated with the idea of communicating with animals. To me, it seemed like this was a similar "ridiculousness" that is associated with the assertion that animals grieve, experience love and sexuality, that mother animals care deeply for their young, and that humans are potentially equal to animals.
In one of our interviews, animal communicator Polly Klein, prefaced her statement with something like this "you're going to think I'm nuts but..." There is a shaming and ridiculing of even entertaining the idea of communicating with animals.
What are the politics of entertaining the idea of animal communication?
If we could communicate to animals, what would they have to say about animal breeding, testing, zoos, companion animals, and eating animals?
Lastly, reflected by our evident difficulty finding academic information around this topic, why is this not a topic traditionally deemed worthy of study/institutional academic investigation?
What did you find interesting about the topic initially?
Emily: The impetus for the direction we took with our project was seeing several advertisements in a spirituality newspaper for women who called themselves “animal communicators.” We were curious what exactly they meant when they claimed they could communicate with animals, and if there were others in the Puget Sound area like them.
I personally was extremely skeptical of these women’s claims but I thought the idea was intriguing and was curious where they were coming from. I also thought it was interesting that one of the women who claimed to be able to communicate with animals had veterinary certification, because there is often such a dichotomy between empirical, scientific training and spirituality.
We wanted to approach our research from an academic as well as a practical angle so we met with the UW’s animal studies librarian to investigate what academic writing there might be relating to our topic. We came up empty-handed other than a possible contact who had worked with an animal communicator, so we moved on to contacting the animal communicators we had learned about.
Audrey:
I was curious to explore this topic, especially due to the "ridiculousness" often associated with the idea of communicating with animals. To me, it seemed like this was a similar "ridiculousness" that is associated with the assertion that animals grieve, experience love and sexuality, that mother animals care deeply for their young, and that humans are potentially equal to animals.
In one of our interviews, animal communicator Polly Klein, prefaced her statement with something like this "you're going to think I'm nuts but..." There is a shaming and ridiculing of even entertaining the idea of communicating with animals.
What are the politics of entertaining the idea of animal communication?
If we could communicate to animals, what would they have to say about animal breeding, testing, zoos, companion animals, and eating animals?
Lastly, reflected by our evident difficulty finding academic information around this topic, why is this not a topic traditionally deemed worthy of study/institutional academic investigation?
Methodology
After contacting Glenda Pearson, our local UW "Animal Studies" Librarian, we were referred to Sarah Van Fleet, a woman who had experience working with an animal communicator, as a client. We also contacted several women from the New Spirit Journal, essentially cold-calling or emailing them to ask if they would take the time to meet with us.
Originally, we were not sure what medium we were going to produce our final work in. We knew it was important to us to talk to people in person--to go ourselves, and conduct the interviews, so that we had the lived experience of meeting with these people. We generally met with people for about 1 hour, recording our interviews, then later going back and roughly transcribing the interview.
We met several times as a group, brainstorming which medium we wanted to use. Finally we settled on the medium of the website.
To be honest, 10 weeks in a quarter is pretty short to conduct a project like this. Had we more time, I would have been curious how this project may have evolved.
For now, we accomplished the first big main step--collecting the information, and meeting with the people who are live practitioners of the ideas we are exploring. Ultimately, our results caught us off guard and were not what we expected. Which leads me to our next point...
Originally, we were not sure what medium we were going to produce our final work in. We knew it was important to us to talk to people in person--to go ourselves, and conduct the interviews, so that we had the lived experience of meeting with these people. We generally met with people for about 1 hour, recording our interviews, then later going back and roughly transcribing the interview.
We met several times as a group, brainstorming which medium we wanted to use. Finally we settled on the medium of the website.
To be honest, 10 weeks in a quarter is pretty short to conduct a project like this. Had we more time, I would have been curious how this project may have evolved.
For now, we accomplished the first big main step--collecting the information, and meeting with the people who are live practitioners of the ideas we are exploring. Ultimately, our results caught us off guard and were not what we expected. Which leads me to our next point...
To publish or not to publish
Afterwards we felt conflicted--how were we to present our honest critique of the "information" we collected, as well as respect these human beings whom just spent their time to sit down with us and be helpful, and share their stories. I was also surprised by my own impulse to "critique," and felt frustrated that I'd fallen into this trap of academics.
Finally we decided on keeping the medium as a website, just not publishing it publicly.
Finally we decided on keeping the medium as a website, just not publishing it publicly.
On Collaborating Together
It was unusual to have a final project in our university setting that allowed us to collaborate the way we did, as well as have direction over our own creative process. Because we were "making it up" as we went along, we decided to go about collecting information and experiences (meeting with our interviewees), then allowing the direction to emerge. We were also able to proofread each other's material, and bounce ideas off each other. Hooray for collaboration!