Abstract

This article explores the effects and affects of equine and other agency in an historical text. In 1841, surveyor Clement Hodgkinson made the questionable decision to bring horses on an expedition to the Bellinger River Valley. This resulted in considerable hardship for Hodgkinson, his Aboriginal guides, and the horses who struggled over some very difficult terrain. While the decision to bring horses appears superficially misguided, a broader perspective of agency in this case lends it a degree of proximal rationality. When framed within theories of Bruno Latour and Vinciane Despret, the decision to bring horses on the expedition becomes a matter of inter-agency in which Hodgkinson was motivated by how he was ‘made-to-feel’ by his horses. Decolonising agency in this context opens up the field to a broad array of human and non-human actors, including horses, who affected and influenced the decisions of Hodgkinson and, by extension, the exploration and subsequent colonisation of the Mid North Coast. This leads to a reanalysis of the concept of power and how it is distributed broadly but is mediated by rationality acting in proximal and ultimate ways.

Keywords: Affect, Agency, Colonisation, Horses, Rationality

How to Cite:

Baynes-Rock, M., (2026) “When Beasts are Burdens: Equine Agency in the Exploration of Australia’s Mid North Coast”, Animal Studies Journal 15(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.14453/asj.1738