How meeting with the horse may contribute to a balanced life: Co-constructing a project-based leisure

This article offers a praxiography of equine-assisted activities, defined as a particular form of project-based leisure. The article stems from a larger study whose main purpose was to work closely with collaborators, equicoaches, and horses, to co-construct activities to support work-life boundary management. The collection of data involved 27 interviews, several focus groups, and approximately 50 hours of participant observation. To make the activities more inclusive, the analysis integrates a diverse group of actors, both human and equine, allowing the authors to gain a better understanding of situated learning mechanisms emerging from multispecies relations. The analysis highlights the role of performative processes and ontological work organized around human-animal relationship building. The authors propose that this study is part of a movement in favor of the coexistence of living beings and that this is a central matter of concern shared by the collaborators involved in this project.