Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull -- Introduction: On Investigating Human-Animal Relationships / Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull -- On Investigating Human–Animal Bonds: Realities, Relatings, Research / Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull -- Animals, Mess, Method: Post-humanism, Sociology and Animal Studies / Nik Taylor -- Nourishing Communities: Animal Vitalities and Food Quality / Henry Buller -- Being guided by Dogs / Marc Higgin -- Being-with-Animals: Modes of Embodiment in Human-Animal Encounters / Diane Dutton -- Honouring Human Emotions: Using Organic Inquiry for Researching Human—Companion Animal Relationships / Susan Ella Dawson -- Human-Enculturated Apes: Towards a New Synthesis of Philosophy and Comparative Psychology / Pär Segerdahl -- Lessons We Should Learn from Our Unique Relationship with Dogs: An Ethological Approach / József Topál and Márta Gácsi -- How Can the Ethological Study of Dog-Human Companionship Inform Social Robotics? / Gabriella Lakatos and Ádam Miklósi -- The Nature of Relations / Mette Miriam Böll -- A Science of Friendly Pigs … Carving Out a Conceptual Space for Addressing Animals as Sentient Beings / Françoise Wemelsfelder -- Crossing Borders: Some Concluding Comments / Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull -- Index / Lynda Birke and Jo Hockenhull.

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Many people feel strong bonds with nonhuman animals, and these relationships are central to much emerging scholarship in human-animal studies. Yet to study relationships is not straightforward; research often focuses on how humans affect animals or vice versa rather than on the relationships themselves. Partly, this is a consequence of the history of disciplinary divisions, particularly between natural and social sciences. In this book, contributors from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds reflect on the methodological challenges they face, and how they go about studying relationships between people and animals. The book provides fascinating insights into how research on human-animal relationships can rise to the challenges of interdisciplinarity, and help us to understand the animals with whom we bond.