ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Science and Environmental Communication
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! : A critical research of bird agency on bird owners in China 1
Provisionally accepted
- Department of News and Communication, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, Beijing, China
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In today's rapidly developing China, a strong anthropocentric ideology persists in the interaction with animals, and this phenomenon is particularly severe in non-mammals other than pet cats and dogs. This study takes birds as the subject and conducts interviews with 21 bird owners based on the theory of vital materialism to explore the intrinsic vitality of birds. Compared to the existing human-animal relationship research in China, which covered with a human-centered transcendental perspective. This research takes pet and recused birds as an entry point, explores the relationship between humans and birds while also capturing the non-relational existence of bird agency. Based on interview, it conducts a more in-depth exploration of relation and anthropocentric theory. Through interviews, it was found that the owners' perception of the bird's vitality was a process from shallow to deep, and they increasingly realized that the bird's vitality itself was not limited to human interaction after a long time of interaction. After interview, research follows the further contemplation of the owner on the relationship between humans and birds.The research focuses on non-mammalian life that often has been neglected, also supplements the non-relational part of the materialist theory of vitality, providing more insights into human-animal relationship research.
Keywords: Bird materialism, Birds agency, Human-bird relationship, Relationalism reflection, Vital materialism
Received: 20 Dec 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ziyi Wong
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