Last month I was privileged to attend and present at the annual meeting of my most favorite organization, the International Society of Anthrozoology (ISAZ). Naturally any organization that devotes itself to the human-animal bond appeals to me. However, ISAZ embodies the added dimension of being multidisciplinary, an orientation that also perfectly reflects the multifaceted nature of the bond. This month I’m going to indulge myself and reflect on the value of this approach because I believe it should be the rule rather than the exception if we seek to gain meaningful knowledge about anything, but especially the human-animal bond. We not only need a multidisciplinary mind-set to fully understand the complexities of the bond, we need that kind of integrated thinking to ensure a quality relationship with any animals in our lives, too.
Years ago I read a study in which teachers from one college department were asked to take lower level courses in another and keep a journal regarding their experiences. The physicists took Introduction to Poetry and members of the English department took first year chemistry or physics. The research revealed what every freshman college student knows by the end of his or her first week in school: each discipline not only has its own language and culture, but also its own way of thinking. However, you don’t need to be a college graduate to know that the same rules apply in any field. Drop in on a meeting of plumbers, beauticians, or loggers and you’ll experience the same thing.
The good news about everyone being on the same page is that you don’t need to stop and define every little term. You also know what subjects to avoid and which ones to explore in more detail and that avoids strife. Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news. Sure we can talk about the accepted topics more efficiently thanks to that shared vocabulary. But that subject matter may be crammed into a box defined more by politics than any desire to expand knowledge of that field.
Attending a multidisciplinary meeting like ISAZ in some ways is like going to Manhattan instead of visiting relatives. Good-by familiarity, hello surprises! Sit in on any session and chances are you’ll be the only person there with your particular background. The person sitting next to you may use words you’ve never heard before or the same words you do in a different way. Whereas those in the same profession might request, “Could you explain what you mean?” as an attempt to criticize or intimidate, here it carries no emotional charge other than an honest desire to learn. Rather than being threatening, the opportunity to experience the same subject from all these different viewpoints is like discovering a box filled with missing puzzle pieces. I invariably come away from ISAZ knowing I’ve gained some very significant fragments to add to my own work that will reveal more details about my own little corner of the human-animal bond.
Interacting with members of a different species is, or should be, like that too. We shouldn’t assume that animals do, or even want to, share our jargon and limit their perceptions and topics of interest to the box that defines our reality. When they do something we don’t understand, our first response shouldn’t be to see this as a violation of our rank by some maverick hellbent on destroying our human box. Instead, like that veterinarian or anthropologist listening to that psychologist, ecologist, or primatologist, our first response should be to understand the animal’s culture and language, if you will, rather than condemning that animal because he or she doesn’t subscribe to ours.
Groups like ISAZ are few and far between as is the friendly and mutually respectful professional brilliance that characterizes it. Luckily until the time comes when such integrated meetings represent the human norm rather than the exception, we can interact with members of other species to enjoy these benefits. I’m not sure that all of my ISAZ colleagues would agree that the wealth of knowledge we gain from each other is somehow akin to that we gain when we spend time with dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, primates, or the other animals in our lives. However my guess is that if anyone could make this connection, it would be the members of that extraordinary group.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
Last month I was privileged to attend and present at the annual meeting of my most favorite organization, the International Society of Anthrozoology (ISAZ). Naturally any organization that devotes itself to the human-animal bond appeals to me. However, ISAZ embodies the added dimension of being multidisciplinary, an orientation that also perfectly reflects the multifaceted nature of the bond. This month I’m going to indulge myself and reflect on the value of this approach because I believe it should be the rule rather than the exception if we seek to gain meaningful knowledge about anything, but especially the human-animal bond. We not only need a multidisciplinary mind-set to fully understand the complexities of the bond, we need that kind of integrated thinking to ensure a quality relationship with any animals in our lives, too.
Years ago I read a study in which teachers from one college department were asked to take lower level courses in another and keep a journal regarding their experiences. The physicists took Introduction to Poetry and members of the English department took first year chemistry or physics. The research revealed what every freshman college student knows by the end of his or her first week in school: each discipline not only has its own language and culture, but also its own way of thinking. However, you don’t need to be a college graduate to know that the same rules apply in any field. Drop in on a meeting of plumbers, beauticians, or loggers and you’ll experience the same thing.
The good news about everyone being on the same page is that you don’t need to stop and define every little term. You also know what subjects to avoid and which ones to explore in more detail and that avoids strife. Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news. Sure we can talk about the accepted topics more efficiently thanks to that shared vocabulary. But that subject matter may be crammed into a box defined more by politics than any desire to expand knowledge of that field.
Attending a multidisciplinary meeting like ISAZ in some ways is like going to Manhattan instead of visiting relatives. Good-by familiarity, hello surprises! Sit in on any session and chances are you’ll be the only person there with your particular background. The person sitting next to you may use words you’ve never heard before or the same words you do in a different way. Whereas those in the same profession might request, “Could you explain what you mean?” as an attempt to criticize or intimidate, here it carries no emotional charge other than an honest desire to learn. Rather than being threatening, the opportunity to experience the same subject from all these different viewpoints is like discovering a box filled with missing puzzle pieces. I invariably come away from ISAZ knowing I’ve gained some very significant fragments to add to my own work that will reveal more details about my own little corner of the human-animal bond.
Interacting with members of a different species is, or should be, like that too. We shouldn’t assume that animals do, or even want to, share our jargon and limit their perceptions and topics of interest to the box that defines our reality. When they do something we don’t understand, our first response shouldn’t be to see this as a violation of our rank by some maverick hellbent on destroying our human box. Instead, like that veterinarian or anthropologist listening to that psychologist, ecologist, or primatologist, our first response should be to understand the animal’s culture and language, if you will, rather than condemning that animal because he or she doesn’t subscribe to ours.
Groups like ISAZ are few and far between as is the friendly and mutually respectful professional brilliance that characterizes it. Luckily until the time comes when such integrated meetings represent the human norm rather than the exception, we can interact with members of other species to enjoy these benefits. I’m not sure that all of my ISAZ colleagues would agree that the wealth of knowledge we gain from each other is somehow akin to that we gain when we spend time with dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, primates, or the other animals in our lives. However my guess is that if anyone could make this connection, it would be the members of that extraordinary group.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.