Understanding human-animal relations from the perspective of work

International audienceOur relations with farm animals are widely criticised because of their impact on the environment, on human health, and on the animals themselves. Work, understood here as the central driving force behind our relationship with animals, has been underexamined or considered primarily as a relationship of domination and exploitation. This chapter focuses instead on the cooperative working relationship between humans and animals. Based on the results of two research projects, one on elephants in Asia, the other on farm animals in France, the authors study the interspecific relations and the agency of animals at work. The chapter’s main theoretical framework, the psychodynamics of work, brings authors to question the engagement of animal subjectivity in work, but also the impact of work on the subjectivity of animals and on their lives. The methods used, interviews with humans and videos of animals, allow for an understanding of what the animals were actually doing in the work, in particular what they were doing beyond the prescribed procedures. It is in this gap between prescribed and actual work that we observe the work of animals and their cooperation - or lack thereof - in the process of producing goods or services