Abstract
AbstractThe conclusion reflects on Harrison’s achievements as a campaigner and analyses the wider changes of animal welfare politics, science, and activism that occurred during her life. Between 1920 and 2000, synthesist Edwardian campaigning gave rise to professionalised activism and new concepts of animal cognition, affective states, and welfare. The “backstage” of British corporatist welfare politics was similarly transformed by polarising “frontstage” public protest and animal rights thinking. Aided by the rise of a new “mandated” animal welfare science and European integration, the turbulent 1970s eventually resulted in a new world of British welfare politics characterised by transnational decision-making and market-driven assurance schemes, which relied on consumer citizens rather than citizen campaigners to drive change. Determined to bear witness to animal welfare, Harrison shaped and witnessed most of these changes even though the economic drivers of welfare were becoming divorced from the universalist moral framework she believed in.
Highlights
Ruth Harrison would not have been surprised by the enduring influence of value-based judgement within animal welfare science
There was no contradiction between science, activism, and politics. She did not live to see the most recent resurgence of value debates among a new generation of welfare scientists. Approaching her 80th birthday, Harrison and other long-standing FACT members like David Sainsbury and Andrew Fraser resigned from the organisation in September 1999.1 Harrison had created FACT and steered its development more or less single-handedly for over 32 years
With FACT chairmanship passing to Donald Broom—and later Marian Stamp Dawkins2—it was clear that “FACT would be entering a new era” and would have to “stand on its own two feet.”[3]. Subsequent restructuring
Summary
Ruth Harrison would not have been surprised by the enduring influence of value-based judgement within animal welfare science. Animal welfare researchers, and historians glossed over her 36 years of full-time campaigning, 32 years of research sponsorship via FACT, 24 years on FAWAC and FAWC, and 6 turbulent years on the RSPCA Council.
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