Resignifying stories of animals at work

People learn through interactions with other people, substances and artefacts (Cole &Cigagas, 2010; Hakkairainen et al., 2013; Säljö, 2012). By making sense of our lived experiences, we position ourselves in our environment and social relationships through the significance we give certain stories. As the dominant species, humans have placed themselves as central actors in multispecies interactions, mainly in work settings where animal labor is required. This dominant position reinforces discourses with material consequences, misrepresenting those who are silent or ignored in the workplace.This chapter aims to explore implicit meaning on positions of animals within work organised by humans. While animals’ presence is acknowledged in multispecies work, quite often they are underrepresented in our stories. Stories about animals are human-centered and by default tends to “humanize” the animal's experience at work as if they would be able to tell us the same story.By engaging with well-known metaphors of animals at work (e.g. ‘they treated me like cattle’), the method of Collaborative Story Craft will be used to mirror the significance of these metaphors which are projected onto animals. The intention is to experiment if the mirror material discussed will evoke a sense of responsibility by resignifying the stories ofanimals at work, including animals as significant actors in the story.