Working Papers
The following papers are in-process:
Authors: M.J. Barrett, Avantika Mathur, Laura Zmud, Carolyn Hoessler, Zahra Ghoreishi, Sydney Kuppenbender & Viktoria Hinz
Using an environmental scan methodology, this study documents the purposes, practices, ethics, and backgrounds of animal communicators (ACs). Working as interspecies translators who practice intuitive interspecies communication (IIC), ACs report detailed communicative exchanges with domestic and wild animals. Analysis of 400 websites and 136 books revealed ACs’ diverse backgrounds, ethical codes, partnerships with animal care practitioners, and roles teaching animal communication techniques to others. Working from all continents except Antarctica, often from a distance, ACs’ purposes include understanding animals’ perspectives, addressing conflict between humans and animals, improving human-animal relations, and providing information that can improve animals’ lives. While their methods require further study, their practices show promising potential for understanding animals, their perspectives and needs. Furthermore, the existence of IIC raises questions about how current frames of reference may be excluding particular ways of knowing and thus, understandings of animal capacities and sentience.
Under review Society and Animals
Authors: Viktoria Hinz; Supervisor: M.J. Barrett.
This doctoral study examines what professional animal communicators (ACs) do and experience when they engage in remote intuitive interspecies communication (rIIC), where the AC and animal are separated, often by large distances (different city, country). Research methods combine a multi-stage data collection and analysis process, firmly guided by descriptive phenomenology. Results provide so-far missing common descriptive ground for understanding IIC and crucial base-line knowledge for shaping future research into the implications and applications of IIC in various fields.
Findings include ACs general strategies and communication process steps, ways of experiencing intuitive messages from animals and experiencing the animal’s presence even though it is physically absent as well as their process of discernment and making sense of experiential communication content .
The first paper from this dissertation has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Organizational Ethnography special issue focusing on IIC. Two forthcoming papers are in preparation, and we anticipate the thesis being publically available early in 2026.
Authors: Sydney Kuppenbender; Supervisor: M.J. Barrett
As climate change and environmental destruction continue to progress at a rapid rate, Indigenous peoples and their more-than-human kin are among those most vulnerable to these changes. Solutions to this global scale ecological collapse continue to pour in, and while a growing number of said solutions were developed in partnership with Indigenous peoples and their ways of knowing, few, if any, actively involve more-than-human animal kin. This master’s research project seeks to answer the question, how are animal communicators (ACs) engaging with wildlife?
This thesis has been completed. To get a copy of the thesis, please visit her website.
Authors: M.J. Barrett, Kayla Seel, Caitlin Wall & Jessica Jackson.
To achieve flourishing of all beings fundamental shifts in ways of knowing and being are required. Many scholars point to relational values as essential to achieving this flourishing. However, to be in equitable relations with those who are different in species, anatomy, and repeatedly categorized as lacking conscious self-awareness, holds challenges. Guided by the analytic methods of process coding, we examine the journeys of professional animal communicators (ACs) as they have explored and refined their skills as interspecies translators. Specifically, these individuals engage in two-way, intuitive communications between themselves and other animals. Our analysis of 21 published AC life stories identified 3 essential ‘levers’ that shaped and informed the AC’s journeys to become professionals offering consultations with animal clients: (1) knowledge of the possibility of interspecies communications; (2) direct experience; and (3) validating evidence. We also identified a set of personal circumstances and resources that influenced the AC’s capacity to engage these communicative relations. We argue that these findings provide important clues to achieve the required shifts in ways of knowing and being that are necessary for all beings to flourish.
This paper was presented at the Multispecies Methods Research Sympoisum, 2023
Authors: Sydney Kuppenbender & M.J. Barrett
Indigenous leaders and allies are demanding diversification of voices in natural resource management (NRM) – including the human and more-than-human. While knowledge co-production is a valid and successful methodology, a fully inclusive multispecies approach is fraught with challenges, such as Western science’s tendency to place humans as superior in relation to the natural world and ignore Indigenous concepts such as relationality and animal agency. These tendencies mean that the voices of animals are seldom sought, or even considered, in conventional NRM practices. One potential response lies in attending to cross-cultural engagements in Intuitive Interspecies Communication (IIC), wherein one’s intuitive capacities enable two-way communication between humans and more-than-humans, independent of physical proximity. This methodology has the capacity to dismantle the human-nature hierarchy, reignite traditional practices of IIC, include animal voices in NRM practices, and create space for deeper relationships with the land based on mutual understanding.