Caring, Relating, and Becoming: Child-Horse Relationships in Equestrian Leisure

Abstract

Copyright (c) 2020 Utsa Mukherjee. This article theorizes child-horse relations and explores the role of care therein. The existing body of research on human-animal relationships in the context of equestrian sport and leisure has for the most part eschewed children’s narratives. Drawn from a wider project on British Indian children’s everyday leisure, this article presents a case study of a child engaged in horse riding as a structured leisure activity. Using interview data with the child and her parents, the analysis demonstrates that child-equine care relationships are reciprocal and unfold within a wider set of social relationships or what I call “multispecies generational order.”