The first ever Working Group with a focus on human/horse relations was held at the European Society for Rural Sociology in Vaasa Finland this August.   It’s abstract began:

In the twenty-first Century horses continue to make a major contribution to sustaining the rural economy. Whereas they once facilitated production on and of the rural landscape, they now facilitate the consumption of it. Whether approached from a narrow post-productivist, or a broader rural consumption point of view, the various equestrian pursuits offer farmers and land owners natural avenues towards rural diversification and participation in the consumption economy. In so doing, equestrian pursuits have the potential to make a complex contribution to the restructuring of rural space.

The range of topics presented went from these highly practical grounded policy issues to explorations of human-animal relations through the lens of the human/horse partnership.  With 18 papers from 10 nations, the Group was the second largest in the Congress.  Over the course of five workshops, the papers explored themes including:

-Performing Equine Landscapes: the symbolic and material production of time and space.
-Equine Landscapes of economic and social development: consumption of and in rural spaces.
-Gender & meaning: construction of the gendered self through equine activities.
-Human-animal interaction: Embodiment; Learning, Discipline.
-Equine Landscapes: therapeutic landscapes and landscapes of recovery and recuperation

The Group planned its own Excursion, which was later included as an official excursion of the Congress.  On the Wednesday, they visited the Vasa regional Trotting Track and stables where they were introduced to the Finnhorse and the Finnish national passion for trotting.   They also visited a private cooperatively-run livery yard and an agricultural college offering new certification courses in Grooming.   This, and other opportunities for socialising were actively undertaken we became a very strong group in a very short time.   Most equine social science researchers undertake this research as a personal passion and are often located within departments or institutions where they are the sole ones with this interest.  It became very clear that all wanted this to be the first of what will be many such gatherings.

One outcome of the momentum we generated was the formation of the Equine Research Network (EqRN), which is an international network for social scientists doing research on matters equine, across a broad range of fields, subjects, and disciplines.  The Network as established itself and is in the process of setting up a website which will contain a number of features and links to matters of mutual interest.  It has over 25 members from 11 countries.  Already there is talk of using a wiki to produce an international glossary of equine and equestrian terms, an international bibliography of publications with relevance to the topic, a Creative Commons image bank, and a set of reports of levels of equine and equestrian activity at a national level.   Links will be provided to policy documents, reports, conferences and initiatives which research or promote human/horse activities and a Repository of International Expertise will provide links to members and their particular expertises.  

Other potential outcome of the Working Group was the result of a subset of participants exploring how to influence the creation of the European Eighth Framework programme to include research on Equine Landscapes as part of rural development.   This is a topic which will also be explored by the EU: Equus conference in Sweden in late October, and a number of members will be attending this conference. 

Once the website is fully up and running, announcements will be made across the network (including here) and at that point we will be welcoming new interested members. 

The quality of the papers which were presented was very good, and the discussions which accompanied them were vigorous and interesting.  As human geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, agricultural economists and development specialists, we agreed that the study of human/horse relations could contribute something special and unique to our fields of study and we plan to build on the momentum we have generated to continue to meet, develop ideas and hopefully collaborate in research and publication.