Center for Feline Studies (CFS)
The Center for Feline Studies conducts research on interactions between felines and human-feline interactions. The primary goal of this non-invasive research is to promote feline welfare and to increase understanding of the feline lifeworld as it intersects with the human environment. The CFS at ABMSC has operated a Feline Interaction Laboratory since 1995, and the Long-term Phenomenological-Interactional Study draws on fieldwork extending back to 1981.
Projects
1. Long-term Phenomenological-Interactional Study (LIPS):
Relies on close participant-observation fieldwork concerning feline-feline and feline-human interactions. Research sites include single cat, double cat, and quadruple cat groupings in conjunction with one, two, or five humans.
This study also seeks to emend the strongly anthropocentric methodology of much phenomenology and ethology by using Baruch Spinoza’s univocity as an alternative to the split-level ontology of Rene Descartes.
2. Companion Animal Technology Study (CATS):
At the ABMSC Feline Interaction Laboratory. Combines the four cat research site with digital cameras in order to collect data on feline-feline and feline-human interactions. This data is used in interpretive studies by CFS researchers and is available to be shared with any researchers in this area.
3. Ailourography/Feligraphy:
The CFS pioneered the method and practice of ailourography (feline ethnography). This involves the combination of Chicago School ethnographic techniques with philosophical problematization of the subject status of the inquirer through material-ontological analysis of interaction.
4. Cat Yoga:
Cats undoubtedly played a role in the genesis of yoga, due to their flexibility and stretching practices. Cat interactions with humans in yoga serve to augment and intensify certain poses for the human practitioner, as well as introducing aleatory elements of cat guidance and foregrounding bodily intersubjectivity between cat and human. The CFS maintains a Yoga Pitch where human and feline practitioners work in mutual yoga--strictly at the option and according to the terms of the cats.