Animals and modernity: changing human–animal relations, 1949–98

Abstract

In this article we provide an empirical test of Franklin’s (1999) recent contribution to the burgeoning study of human–animal relations. Drawing on the anthropological claim that animals are good to think with, Franklin used theories of reflexive modernization to explain a shift to increasingly zoocentric and sentimentalized relations with animals. After deriving a series of expectations from this account, we tested them through a content-analysis of over 1000 articles from one Australian newspaper over a 50-year period. Broadly, we found support for Franklin’s key claims. But we also found local contingencies and historical continuities which suggest limits to the sweeping theorizations of change in accounts of reflexive modernization.