Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding. Issue 2 (7th February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Smith, Harriet; Miele, Mara; Charles, Nickie; Fox, Rebekah
• Is Part Of: Transactions. Volume 46:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 478
• Page End: 494
• Publication Date: 2021-02-07
• Subjects: animal geography -- dog training -- human–animal relationship -- multispecies ethnography -- ontological choreographies -- visual methods; Geography -- Periodicals; 910.6041
• DOI: 10.1111/tran.12429
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0020-2754

Abstract

Abstract : To develop and illustrate the potential for visual methodologies in conducting multispecies ethnography, we present a case study of general‐purpose police dog training in the UK. Our argument is two‐fold: first, we draw on STS approaches and insights for looking at training activities as material and socio‐cultural devices that, we argue, constitute a training technology. Here we have been influenced by the work of Cussins and adopted her concept of "ontological choreographies" for addressing the development of the police dog–police officer bond and ability to communicate for working together. Second, we argue that visual data capture presents valuable opportunities for "less human‐centred" and more symmetrical methods to approach non‐human/more than human research subjects. We illustrate how photo diaries and video clips enabled us to remain attentive to the material and embodied practices of dog training, bringing to the fore the dogs' actions, tools, and devices and thus enlivening the material–cultural choreographies of the training activities. In conclusion, we elucidate how this onto‐epistemological approach enabled us to investigate the material and corporeal construction of the general purpose (GP) police dog. Abstract : This paper, inspired by STS approaches and theorising, explores training technologies, and it illustrates the type of non‐human agency that they enable. We argue that visual methods offer a valuable opportunity to decentre the subject of training practices, and we engage with current debates in animal geographies about the changes taking place in human–non‐human animal relations.