On ableism and anthropocentrism: A canine perspective on the workplace inclusion of disabled people

Abstract

Despite growing attention for how disabled people become Othered in organizational settings and similar scholarly interest in the treatment of non-humans at work, no analysis so far has focused on the potential double marginalization that takes place when disabled people go to work with their service animal. In filling this void, this study draws attention to the embodied entanglement of ‘humanimal’ in a number of organizations where animals are unexpected. The study argues that the spatial, discursive and affective treatment of service dogs operates as a proxy for the in/exclusion of employees with mobility and visual impairments. This way, processes of ableism become masked as subtle and indirect performances towards non-human Others. Contributions are made towards several literatures by introducing the idea of a ‘proxy’ to help understand the different modes of peripheral inclusion of disabled employees via their legally accepted service animals, by bringing in the role of affect in workplace disablement, and finally by taking animal labour more seriously.