Encuesta Exploratoria para diagnóstico preliminar de la Gestión del Conocimiento

Photography has a long and varied history in ethnography. Many anthropologists

have used photography to record and highlight information about events, people, and

locations that they encountered (Gold, 2007, p.144). Moreover, photographs also

provide a way for researchers to code their data and analyse their field notes since

they capture whatever the anthropologist was focusing on at that moments; thus,

allowing for reflection after fieldwork has ended (Gold, 2007, p.144). Multispecies

ethnographers are no exception to this as they too have turned to photography to

convey human-animal entanglements. Doing so, they argue, shows how complex

these relationships can be (Taylor & Hamilton, 2014, p.264). It is for these reasons

that I also decided to use photography.

I discovered that by taking photographs I could, in part, visually show greyhounds

experience on their transition, without relying on symbolic language, through my

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they were potentially feeling at that point of time. For instance, I could show how

they were interacting with other dog breeds or what they liked to do when exploring.

In addition, these photographs, especially in Chapter Seven, show how greyhounds’ behaviour and body language change as they settle into their new environment and

become reincorporated back into society as a pet. Thus, the photographs I use aid in

my discussion of how greyhounds were finding their rite of passage because they are

icons, which show how greyhounds were holding their body or what they were doing

at that moment. Even though photography shows bias of the photographer, it,

nevertheless, limited the risk that I anthropomorphise them because they were not

posed and show greyhounds acting naturally. The photographs, thus, show how

greyhounds, like humans, have agency. Therefore, the use of photography in part

decentres the human by disturbing the symbolic nature of a thesis, allowing

greyhounds to have more of an equal voice.

To take the photos of greyhounds’ candid moments, I used the camera on my phone. Doing so meant I did not have to take extra equipment whilst undertaking fieldwork.

Also, using a camera to take photos would have been inconvenient when dog

walking because the size and the bulkiness would have gotten in the way. If I saw

something I wanted to take a photo of all I needed to do was take my phone out of

my pocket, take a photo, and put it back. I believe that my phone was less distracting

to the greyhounds than a camera would have been since they are bigger and,

therefore, more noticeable. As a result, the potential to capture them behaving

naturally was enhanced.

Before starting fieldwork, I planned to take hundreds of photographs. Though I did

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reasons for this. At the adoption agency, for instance, it was difficult to take my

phone out of my pocket when walking a greyhound on a leash to take a photograph.

Because I was not confident walking dogs I used both hands to hold the leash.

Secondly, the weather played a part. If it was raining I did not want to use my phone

in case it got damaged. At the race track, meanwhile, photography is not allowed.

For this reason, I use photographs that I have found on the internet of greyhounds

racing. Lastly, when conducting participant-observation with greyhounds and their

families there was not enough time to take photos. Nevertheless, I found using this

methodology to be useful.

Not all the photographs I use in this thesis are my own. I also use photographs from

my human participants, for instance. Photos taken by greyhound owners show what

greyhounds were like in their home environment without me, a strange human,

watching them. They were also taken when I was not able to be there. For instance,

one of my human participants took photos throughout the first six months of having

her greyhound.

Even though I found using photography to be useful for multispecies ethnography, it

was important for me to be involved in the present moment without a camera. I took

this advice from Pink (2015) and Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, and Blaise

(forthcoming). They advocate that cameras and pens should occasionally be left

behind (Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, and Blaise, 2016, p.1). Pink (forthcoming) refers

to this as sensory ethnography in which fieldwork is conducted on the participants’ terms (p.117). She argues that using sensory ethnography requires investigators to be

engaged with the environment and the activities taking place during fieldwork, not

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owners, for example, I would keep my phone in my pocket as this was one of the

only times I could see the relationship between human and greyhound with my own

eyes.

By doing this, I found that I could fully engage with the dogs and, to the best of my

human ability, immerse myself with what they were seeing and doing without

constantly thinking about what I should take a photograph of, or distancing myself

from their relationships by looking through a lens. Due to this, I gained a better idea

of how my greyhound participants experienced the world through their senses, which

I cover in the next chapter, instead of relying on my sense of sight, which humans,

unlike greyhounds, predominantly use to make sense of their surroundings.