Naturekind is an interesting book wherein Melissa Leach and James Fairhead take an approach to the idea of language and communication that I haven't quite read about before. BioSemiotics is not a field I'm super familiar with, so I enjoyed learning more about it. Going in, I expected this book to be another discussion of how other animals have language and communication that is complex in a myriad of ways much like our own. The authors take a much wider ranging approach. While I do have some criticisms, overall I found the book to be rather enlightening in ways that I think a variety of audiences can learn from. The authors not only discuss communication with and between other animals, but also stretch it out to plants, forests, soils, and cities.
Those of us who have read a lot about these things may bristle at this idea, wondering if it is going to be a misrepresentation of something in order to demean the expression or care for other animals (such as when disingenuous people claim "plants scream and feel pain!" in order to avoid discussion of harm and exploitation of farmed animals.) I'm happy to tell you that that is not what the authors are doing. They argue language and communication are more diverse and comprehensive. There are human languages and communications, that of other animals, and that between humans and other animals that are relatable to readers for obvious reasons. However they expand the idea to call attention to the interweaving of everyone and everything in each environment. There is no need to anthropomorphize plants and places in order to discuss interwoven communication and approach an important understanding of interconnectedness between everyone.
This another book I am reading yet again as a non-academic person in this particular field. That said, I found their book to be fairly readable and accessible. It is jargony but in a way that requires more time and attention, rather than a way that makes it impossible for the layman to read. The book also references many others I have read about animal language and communication which I was pleased to see. The review of the literature in general is pretty wide and impressive.
One of the best parts about this book is a tenet woven throughout every chapter: the importance of seeing individuals rather than species solely as homogenous groups. While appreciation for and understanding of species as a whole is important, humans often lose sight of the individual which can lead to significant problems both in study and in the capacity to do harm. The authors note that there is not a single human language nor style of communication. Thus, we should approach others knowing that there will be individual, cultural, dialectical, etc differences within and across species.
The book also takes note of how power dynamics can affect communication, however I think they did not focus on this enough. Unfortunately, most in depth discussion of other animals (who received full chapters) were of domesticated species or others in captivity and focused specifically on humans' communication with them rather than their communications with one another.
There was not enough discussion about how chickens, horses, bees, etc behave outside of exploitative (egg farming, horse riding, breeding, and selling, honey production) environments. There is even a quick mention near the end of "respect" for chickens including the act of eating them when they're killed for not producing eggs enough anymore. The authors are including a perspective rather than stating this as personal belief, but I still found it frustrating that there was no discussion of the chicken's desire to exist even when she is no longer a site of capitalist gain. They discuss dressage- widely accepted as including cruel practices- as "mutually beneficial" for humans and horses. They also make the mistake of discussing colony collapse of bees while focusing on honey bees. This is one of the most successful misdirections of the honey industry. Native bees are the ones in danger and suffering collapse. Honey bees are a non native species introduced by honey producers that competes with native bees, possibly making colony collapse worse, while also being victims of it collaterally. Apiaries are also not magical sites of human and bee communication when they're inseminating queens and cutting off her wings so she can't leave in order to produce and sell honey.
This repeated focus on humans' desires and communication seems to detract at times from what it seems the authors are trying to do with this book. I expected much more discussion of how other than human animals communicate with one another both within and across species. The focus on the human creates an anthropocentric through line in these stories which allows for the neglect in attention to the aforementioned exploitative relationships. I believe if the authors intended to focus most on domestic species that they should have visited sanctuaries rather than farms or discussed native bees if they were going to focus on colony collapse at all.
I do like how the authors regularly discussed a variety of indigenous peoples relationships and practices with other animals. To see something on the scientific side be discussed in tandem with cultural practices including spirituality is an interesting exercise. They also discuss the problem with seeing indigenous people as part of nature separate from other people and the problems this creates. That said there is still a little bit of romanticism there likely born from wanting to show respect. Given that the book is focused on communication and language, I would for instance challenge the idea that animals "give their lives" to hunters as patently false. It only works as an argument if one completely ignores communication from other animals. There is no bear scene from Yellowjackets happening in this universe. Discussion of some people's need for subsistence hunting or their cultural existence in a web of ecology does not require anthropocentric misdirection away from what individual animals are desiring and experiencing. Overall though, I do think they navigated anthropological information and tandem with biosemiotics and ways that made a lot of sense.
When the book gets into communication via plants, forests, soils, immune systems, and even cities, I found myself pleasantly challenged in terms of how I think about these things. This is where my own anthropocentrism peeks through as my very human brain wants to analyze how these things are like humans. Thankfully, they often aren't and don't need to be. There is still a rich web of interconnected communication that is difficult to verbalize. These authors manage to create a vision where we can better understand how these things are connected and how information is transferred and shared. They helped me think about things as all part of a larger collective existence. I really enjoyed these parts of this book for that reason. I don't believe I've previously encountered this sort of discussion that was not disingenuous or anthropomorphic*. Rather than forcing nature into anthropocentric definitions of language and communication, the authors expand upon these ideas instead.
The conclusion does well to wrap up a variety of ideas expressed throughout the chapters focusing on each category of species or environment. There is a small discussion about why some will choose not to kill other animals when possible, but I would have liked to read a bit more about that given how much of their study was focused on sites power dynamics between humans and other animals. It seems possibly that the authors lean in that direction, and I believe they would have a lot to add to the discussion if they would have spent more time on it. I understand that this book is more of an exercise of describing things that exist rather than making an ethical argument of some sort. Yet, I still would have liked a little more balance in this area.
Even though I do have of criticisms about the discussions specifically of other animals, I am still rating this book highly. It adds to the conversation in ways I've never seen before. It left me thinking a lot about communication topics outside of animality in ways that reach throughout all of my own interactions with the wider world. It also helped me better understand biosemiotics in general as well as how these particular authors are expanding ideas therein.
This was also posted to my goodreads and storygraph.
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*I do not use the term anthropomorphism to demean other species like many people do. What I mean is the direct application and insistence that someone else has human traits in ways that are not possible. An example would be when you see a barbecue sign with a dressed in a t-shirt serving up his own dead body on a plate or the claim that vegetables cry in pain as they are picked because they release biological communication elements. Anthropomorphism is NOT the idea that other animals have language and communication or have complex emotions and experiences even though some people like to pretend that that is what is in order to avoid acknowledging the oppression of other species.
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