For many years Swedish archeologists have stumbled upon domestic cat remains in the Viking age graves. Most of the graves in this paper come from southern Sweden and Mälaren Valley where many finds have been studied. The questions are how much of the cats is left in the grave material, what kind of grave goods were deposited with the dead, if cats are usually buried either with men or women and what the combinations of all the different animal species that cats were buried with can tell us. The theory in this work is concerning human - animal relations between the vikings and their cats with the weight on antropocentrism. The point of the mentioned theory in this paper is to provide answers to what cats could mean in the viking burial ritual context. 17 grave fields have been analysed for this work with the biggest part of them located in the Mälaren Valley regions (14 grave fields), and 3 in southern Sweden. The result of this study implies that cats in the analysed Mälaren Valley and southern Sweden graves were buried with wealthy people like aristocrats and merchants. They were also seen as exotic pets during their lifetime. The cats were usually buried with other animals like dogs, horses and chickens which all propably had a status of sacral animals during viking age. Cats' remains condition is also brought up as the felines were found either as partial or full/ almost complete skelettons. Analysis results also imply that cats were buried as often with men as with women and there are also rare cases of child burials with these animals.

This essay explores the application of zoomorphism and anthropomorphism in Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi. The novel, rather than being a mere shipwreck-narrative or a miraculous tale with religious overtones, is also a story about the complicated and perhaps inevitably divided relationship between humans and animals. This essay introduces the fields of ecocriticism and animal studies and defines anthropomorphism and zoomorphism in the context of literary criticism. The essay goes on to discuss the layers of meaning behind the names and naming of the two main characters using Burke’s rhetoric of identification, analyses the anthropomorphism and religiosity in the novel’s two stories, and analyses the two accepted readings of the novel from a zoomorphic perspective. The essay looks at the human-animal divide and its problems in literature, going into Derrida’s animal philosophy to provide a counterpoint to a view derived from Cartesian dualism. In a straight reading of the novel, the first story is regarded as metaphoric while the second story is regarded as literal. There is an alternative reading where it is left to the reader to decide which story is true, but this essay argues that this reading negates a metaphoric interpretation of either story and therefore dismisses the straight reading. Instead, this essay proposes a third, zoomorphic reading, fully compatible with the straight reading, where anthropomorphism is employed to externalize human actions onto animals, but where zoomorphism is employed to project animals onto humans in order to externalize their cannibalism. In the zoomorphic reading, both stories are interpreted as vehicles of projection while avoiding the logical pitfall of the alternative reading.

To eat or not to eat meat? That has become a central question in the sustainability conversation. There is growing scientific consensus that the global meat consumption issocially and ecologically unsustainable. Planetary and human health concerns aside, there is also a moral dimension to meat, that is, the rights and responsibilities we have towards the animals that make the meat. While there is, indeed, mounting ethical discomfort with meat consumption, scientific and public moral inquiries tend to omit on-farm perspectives.  This thesis zooms in on the moral sustainability of cattle farming and does so from the perspective of lived experience. Two Swedish cattle farms are selected as case studies and the question is how rearing animals for food is morally possible. Combining discursive and non-discursive methods of research, I uncover the narratives behind the farms’ different farming practices. For the analysis, I build an eclectic conceptual framework that draws on practice theory, the concept of morality, and human-animal studies. I show how human values, the physical environment of the farm, and understandings of animality interplay to create a specific farming practice. In these practices, certain human-animal relationships are possible while others are impossible. The nature of the human-animal relationships has implications for what is perceived as moral when animals are reared for human food.  By showing how ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in our relationships with nonhumans form, the study broadens the meat discussion beyond concerns for human and planetary health. The aim is to equip the reader with tools to reflect over what human-animal relationship the meat we eat represents and, ultimately, what relationship we want it to represent.

This essay applies human-animal studies in relation to the Swedish author Kerstin Ekman's books Guds barmhärtighet (1999), Sista Rompan (2002) and Skraplotter (2003) together called Vargskinnstrilogin. Kerstin Ekman's authorship is characterized by a coexistence between human, nature and animals where the stories entangle them into a dense complexity. As a reader, one is constantly reminded of this coexistence through Ekman's narrative approach as her stories contain many contact zones between humans and animals, which creates space for problematizing this entangled coexist from a posthumanistic perspective. The animals in the stories are at different distances to the human being based on their characteristics of being regarded as wild, domesticated or ferral. Based on these three categories, the wolf as a representative of the wild animals is analyzed in a theoretical context focusing on the function of different power structures within the anthropocentric paradigm. Ferral conditions are analyzed on the basis of, among other things, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's theories of animal-becomings, escape lines and rhizom where the dog mainly exists when it is embodied in close interaction with humans in Ekman's stories. The domesticated animals are analyzed on the basis of the tension between rural and urban, where the progress of the civil society are rapidly changing during the 20th century which creates changed relations between people and agricultural animals.

The thesis is based on the presumption that zoological gardens are cultural institutions which reflect social and cultural interpretations of what is called 'nature' and animals. By analyzing data gained through participant observation it focuses on the meanings and forms which are ascribed to animals living in the Prague Zoo via the gaze of visitors. Furthermore, by analysis of visual and textual sources provided by the zoo, I examine how the 'zoo animal' is constructed by the zoo itself. I argue that this zoo animal constitutes a specific form of the animal, different from both the domesticated and the wild one. The zoo and its visitors create a chimeric 'beast' which encompasses different and even contradictory trends and conceptions of thinking about the zoo animal.

Human pleasant touches promote feelings of security, supportiveness, and wellbeing. Conversely, human unpleasant touches promote the body for either “fight or flight” or “short term acute stress” during emergencies, feeling of stress or danger. The promoted stress response is released from the hypothalamus by the sympathetic nerve system further to the spinal cord to reach the signals to the adrenal medulla, where stress hormones adrenaline is released. Adrenaline, which is characterized by a mimic sympathetic nerve system, interacts with α and β receptors on different organs. The aim for this study was to investigate whether the stroker (partner/stranger) touch effects on adrenaline hormone releases. The null hypothesis for this study entails a significant adrenaline reduction in partners’ touches compared with strangers’ touches. Indirect competitive ELISA method was used, and concentration data of a total of sixteen participants was obtained. Whitney-U test was carried out to compare group differences within stroker (stranger/partner) touches and adrenaline releasing level. In addition, correlation in adrenaline with noradrenaline and oxytocin hormones was obtained using Spearman’s correlation test. The significant p-value 0.05 was conducted. The result of this study showed no differences between stroker (partner/stranger) associated with adrenaline hormone release. Correlation between partner maximum (max) concentration data for both oxytocin and adrenaline had significant differences. However, max variables for adrenaline and noradrenaline within stroker did not show significant differences. The conclusion of this study is that the gentle touch stimulus used in this study was not enough to detect stress hormone in adrenaline.

The background of the study is that humans’ relationship to the nature and animals is not universal and is based on critical archeology and reflexive thinking. Previous researchers have interpreted the animals in graves as food offerings or a communication meal, where the horse is highlighted as a prominent symbol of power, prosperity, alliances, and aristocracy. Researchers have also compared animal style ornaments with Icelandic Sagas, and they connect humans and animals to transformation, metamorphoses, and hybridity. The interpretations in this context are based on the animals´ contemporary function and modern views. By studying the materials more closely, it turned out that the bones of humans and animals have been mixed in the graves. In the animal style ornamentation, there are often mixtures between humans and animals, and so also in the Icelandic Sagas. This indicates that the ancient humans intended to recreate mixtures between humans and animals in the materials. The study also links to the anthropological terms totenism and animism, to show that humans’ relationship to animals differs, and that it is not always the same as the modern view.

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[pt] Esta pesquisa aposta nas relações de aliança e contaminação interespécies (humano-animal) como forma de sobreviver criativamente neste mundo em crise. Diante da urgência de encontrar outras formas de viver a vida e habitar a Terra, o objeto escolhido para a pesquisa é o tecido social, poético e sensorial do Santuário animal Vale da Rainha, refúgio dedicado ao resgate e acolhimento de animais de produção vítimas de maus-tratos e descartes. Por atenção às práticas em curso no Santuário, busca-se multiplicar versões para as histórias dos animais que ali se encontram, sob a hipótese de que as histórias normalmente contadas a seu respeito são desatentas às suas formas criativas de ser. Parte-se do conceito de version da filósofa e psicóloga belga Vinciane Despret, explorando-se em especial, nas práticas que ele recobre, exercícios de tradução experimental interespécie. Sob o ponto de vista implicado no conceito de version, a tradução é entendida como forma de produzir sentidos a partir de diferenças nascidas no encontro entre humano-animal, opondo-se assim às práticas tradutórias que operam sob a lógica da sinonímia intermundos e que tendem, muitas vezes, à igualação do não igual segundo parâmetros antropocêntricos. A pesquisa pergunta: como as traduções interespécies conduzidas como versions podem transverter histórias frigorificadas (animais de corte) em histórias vivas e abertas (espécies companheiras)? Como através dessas traduções é possível reviver relações emaranhadas – e nada óbvias – antes apagadas, silenciadas, dessensibilizadas? Como essas histórias podem criar, nos termos de Donna Haraway, response-ability, isto é, tornar-nos mais hábeis para responder de modo responsável e inventivo às vidas não humanas que nos cercam? Ao lado das proposições de Vinciane Despret, têm importância especial aqui os conceitos de espécies companheiras e fabulação especulativa, de Donna Haraway. O trabalho se origina dos encontros com os animais do santuário, três em especial: a vaca Gaia, a búfala Chacrona e o bezerro Nandi. A escrita da tese busca materializar em sua própria trama o trânsito não hierárquico entre saberes preconizado por Despret e por Haraway - saberes práticos, científicos, filosóficos, poéticos. Nos experimentos de tradução interespécies propostos, mostra-se como uma ecologia da atenção e do cuidado subverte a lógica binária dos discursos apocalípticos e salvacionistas – e se revela em um ativismo sensível. / [en] This research bets on the interspecies relationships of alliance and contamination (human-animal) as a way to survive creatively in this world in crisis. In face of the urgency to find new ways to live life and inhabit Earth, the chosen object of study is the social, poetic and sensorial fabric of the Vale da Rainha Animal, a refuge dedicated to rescuing and caring for livestock animals victims of mistreatment and disposal. In attention to the current practices at the Sanctuary, this work aims to multiply versions for the stories heard about these animals under a hypothesis that the stories traditionally told usually neglect their creative ways of being. The starting point is the Belgian philosopher and psychologist Vinciane Desprets concept of version and this work explores specially its practices: exercises of interspecies experimental translation. From the perspective implied in the version s concept, translation is understood as a way to produce meanings for the differences risen from the human-animal encounter, and it opposes translation practices based on the logic of interworlds synonymy that frequently tend to the levelling of non-equals based on anthropocentric parameters. This research asks: How can interspecies translations, performed as versions, convert frozen stories (livestock animals) into live and open ones (companion species)? How can these translations make it possible to relive relationships that are entangled – and not at all obvious – and previously erased, silenced, desensitized? How can these stories create what Donna Haraway called response-ability, that is, make us more able to be responsible and inventive in the response to the non-human lives around us? Alongside Vinciane Despret s propositions, Donna Haraway s concepts of companion species and speculative fabulation have special importance. This work originates from the meetings with the sanctuary s animals, three in particular: the cow Gaia, the buffalo Chacrona and the calf Nandi. The writing of this thesis aims to materialize, in its own plot, the non-hierarchical flow among the knowledges advocated by Despret and Haraway – the practical, scientific, philosophical and poetic knowledge. The interspecies translation experiments proposed show how an ecology of attention and care subverts the binary logic of apocalyptic and salvationist speeches– and reveals itself as sensitive activism.

<p> There has been substantial growth in recent decades in the variety and popularity of roles for dogs assisting humans in professional therapeutic partnerships. Simultaneously, increasingly rigorous research has repeatedly demonstrated the effects of professional human-canine partnerships in remedying important issues of public health among several at-risk populations. Yet, despite these areas of growth, mechanisms of action and predictors of efficacy in the field of human-animal interaction (HAI) remain poorly understood, and the role of human diversity has been rarely discussed. Thus, the present dissertation examines potential mechanisms and diverse predictors in two distinct samples of professional human-canine partnerships, while building the impetus to explore diversity in the HAI field as a whole. For the first three studies (Chapters 2-4), the selected samples of professional human-canine partnerships include military veterans working with psychiatric service dogs to mediate their symptoms of PTSD and healthcare professionals in pediatric hospitals working with facility dogs to benefit their patients. Following the introduction in Chapter 1, the objective of Chapters 2-3 was to examine primary human outcomes in the selected professional canine partnerships. In a crosssectional study of N=198 military veterans with PTSD, Chapter 2 compared PTSD symptom severity between n=112 veterans with service dogs and n=86 veterans on the waitlist to receive service dogs in the future. Next, in a cross-sectional study of N=130 healthcare professionals in pediatric hospitals, Chapter 3 compared job-related well-being and mental health of n=65 professionals working with facility dogs to n=65 working without. Findings suggested benefits to the mental health and well-being of both military veterans with PTSD and pediatric healthcare professionals, which were significantly associated with their professional canine partnerships. Subsequently, the objective of Chapter 4 was to explore how variances within a specific professional canine partnership may suggest predictors and potential mechanisms for the observed human outcomes. Thus, in a longitudinal study of N=82 veterans with PTSD and their service dogs, Chapter 4 explored associations of veterans’ outcomes with veteran-service dog demographics and interactions. Results suggested components of the human-canine partnership which might explain observed human outcomes, including social connections, a calming influence, and strong humananimal bonds. </p>