It’s been over two decades since Donna Haraway published The Companion Species Manifesto, but the Prickly Paradigm pamphlet continues to find new readers and spark new ideas. Haraway recently joined journalist Laura Flanders to reflect on her work, including her PPP pamphlet and her classic “A Cyborg Manifesto,” and what it means to be a “proper self” in relationship to a larger whole.

“I don’t think of the self as a kind of isolated individual,” says Haraway. “We’re networked materialities with deep histories. An individual is embedded deeply in worlds with other people, with other organisms, with living and non-living parts of the world. That to be a self is to come to a thicker appreciation and accountability for the way we’re embedded in the world and act in the world. That’s what I mean by being a proper self.”

Originally published in 2003, The Companion Species Manifesto tackles this issue from a surprising angle: the human-dog dynamic. Haraway argues that people and dogs have been bonded in “significant otherness” for millennia and essential partners (or co-conspirators) in the history of human evolution. Our relationship with our canine companions can teach us how to better engage the planet, other species, and each other.

You can find the full transcript of Haraway’s conversation with Flanders here. Their discussion starts with a reflection on The Companion Species Manifesto, but their conversation touches on AI and authoritarianism, feminism and Buddhism.

Dive deeper into The Companion Species Manifesto here.