Disrupting Human-Animal Borders: Empathy, Intimacy and Family in Contemporary Italy

• In Event: Animals from a Sociological Perspective Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3: Human-Animal Futures

Abstract

In recent years, the presence of dogs and cats in domestic and public spaces has expanded significantly in Italy, including settings that were until recently considered off-limits to animals, such as restaurants, public transport, hotels, and beaches. Alongside these changes, new services and occupational figures have emerged, municipalities have addressed issues such as the burial of non-human animals, and legal and insurance arrangements increasingly include companion animals. Despite the visibility of these transformations, sociological research — particularly in Italy — has paid limited attention to everyday forms of human–animal coexistence.
This paper presents findings from the first large-scale qualitative study conducted in Italy between 2021 and 2025 on multispecies families. Drawing on 135 in-depth interviews with women and men living with at least one companion animal, the study investigates how daily routines and domestic and public spaces are reorganized through human–animal coexistence, what meanings people attribute to these relationships, and what forms of subjectivity, roles, and emotional bonds are recognized for cohabiting animals within family life.
Methodologically, the research is grounded in interpretative thematic analysis and informed by a processual and relational perspective inspired by Norbert Elias, with particular attention to changes in emotional regulation, thresholds of acceptability, and everyday practices. The main contribution of the study is a detailed empirical map of ordinary routines — such as sleeping arrangements, feeding practices, care, mobility, and shared use of space — that structure contemporary human–animal coexistence in Italian families and public settings.
The findings challenge common-sense interpretations that frame these developments as superficial trends, instead revealing widespread and durable transformations in intimacy, family practices, and processes of recognition of significant others, pointing to the growing social relevance of multispecies family configurations.

Author

• Gaia Peruzzi, Sapienza University of Rome