Animal Turn Research Articles

X-Tracker: Automated Analysis of Xenopus Tadpole Visual Avoidance Behavior.

Xenopus laevis tadpoles exhibit an avoidance behavior when they encounter a moving visual stimulus. A visual avoidance event occurs when a moving object approaches the eye of a free-swimming animal at an approximately 90-degree angle and the animal turns in response to the encounter. Analysis of this behavior requires tracking both the free-swimming animal and the moving visual stimulus both prior to and after the encounter. Previous automated tracking software does not discriminate the moving animal from the moving stimulus, requiring time-consuming manual analysis. Here we present X-Tracker, an automated behavior tracking code that can detect and discriminate moving visual stimuli and free-swimming animals and score encounters and avoidance events. X-Tracker is as accurate as human analysis without the human time commitment. We also present software improvements to our previous visual stimulus presentation and image capture that optimize videos for automated analysis, and hardware improvements that increase the number of animal-stimulus encounters. X-Tracker is a high throughput, unbiased, and significant time-saving analysis system that will greatly facilitate visual avoidance behavior analysis of Xenopus laevis tadpoles, and potentially other free-swimming organisms. The tool is available at https://github.com/ClineLab/Tadpole-Behavior-Automation.

The semiotic repertoire of dairy cows

Abstract This article moves from the familiar—the human—to the very different in sociolinguistics—the dairy cow. Based on multispecies ethnography, the aim of this article is to advocate the animal turn in sociolinguistics (Cornips 2019). The guiding question is how do non-human animals, that is, dairy cows—mutually and with humans—imbue their intraspecies and interspecies interaction with meaning that makes sense for the two species. The concept of semiotic repertoire is invoked in order to investigate how dairy cows draw on resources to make meaning, and the concept of material-semiotic assemblage is applied in order to account for the different effects generated by the resources that come together at particular moments. The assemblage perspective does not take a ‘cow’ or ‘human’ as discrete and fixed but focuses on the distributed and emergent agency as a relational effect of all elements involved: humans, non-humans, and other. (Intraspecies and interspecies interactions, the semiotic repertoire, assemblage, dairy cows, practices)*

Historicizing the “Beast-Man”

This essay surveys the emergence and trajectory of the historiography of slavery as it has at times intersected with human-animal studies. First, the essay traces the historiography of slavery from 1918 to the 1980s to question how historians wrote about both chattel slavery as a regime of labor involving animals and the dehumanizing function of slavery as an economic system. Second, the essay looks at how the “animal turn,” beginning in the 1980s, has since influenced how social, intellectual, and environmental historians have written about slavery and human-animal relationships. Finally, the essay concludes by making the case that animal historians interested in slavery should pay attention to ongoing debates and discussions in Black studies involving the philosophy of humanity.

Christianity and reverential naturalism engage a world in peril: A dialogue between disciplines.

Christian theologians and ostensibly secular sociologists of religion rely on different resources to respond to personal, local, or global problems. The environmental crises we see around the world reflect a strict hierarchy between human beings and the natural world. In both the theological and social scientific arenas of the last few decades, however, we see an 'animal turn' that exposes the hubris of anthropocentrism and creates opportunities for new ways of writing and teaching about the natural environment. Using the Pacific Northwest's 'reverential naturalism' as a touchstone, the authors reflect on the extent to which their respective fields prepare secular scholars and theologians to address the crises all animals - including humans - now face. Using a dialogue format, they explore whether theological and social scientific regimes of truth and knowledge are incommensurable. What might this mean for the region and the two fields out of which they authors emerge?

And the Winner Is - Anthropocentrism and Speciesism: Writing a History of Animals in New Zealand’s Agricultural and Pastoral Events

The paper explores news photographs from New Zealand between 1900 and 1932 and unpacks the happenings at agricultural and pastoral events. It utilizes an archival research strategy to find the news coverage of such events that is informed by an animalcentric philosophy. As such, it engages with critical posthumanist and poststructuralist thought. This allows the presence of nonhuman animals as sentient beings to be recognized and challenges previous approaches of scholarship. Thus, the paper writes farmed nonhuman animals into the history of agricultural and pastoral events. In illustrating what occurred at these events, the paper illuminates the anthropocentric bias and speciesism-grounded principles embedded in human attitudes toward farmed nonhuman animals. Humans treat fellow sentient beings unfairly and unjustly, which is problematic when nonhuman animal sentience provides moral worth. This study contributes to studies in leisure’s ‘animal turn’ by focusing on the entanglements of human and farmed nonhuman animals in events.

Qualitative methods in psychology after the animal turn: human-animal and multi-species relations

ABSTRACT This article makes the case for the value of qualitative methods in advancing our understanding of human-animal relations and multispecies relations in psychology, introducing the first special issue of a journal dedicated to qualitative psychology and the field of human-animal studies. It offers a thematic summary of the articles organized into four sections. Each section includes a reflection on the methods adopted in the context of broader developments in human-animal studies. To do so, Gorman’s conceptualisation of mutualistic, parasitic, mutualist and commensal relations is utilised, as a basis for deciding whether the methods adopted allow us to consider ‘who benefits and how’ from the human-animal and multispecies relationships scrutinised in this issue. Particularly in showcasing qualitative methods that centre the experience and agency of animals where they have traditionally been discounted, it is concluded that this special issue constitutes a significant moment in the development of psychology as a discipline.

데리다의 채식주의 비판과 에코페미니즘의 맥락적 채식주의 윤리

This article aims to interpret the implications of the critique of vegetarianism in Derrida’s animal philosophy and to consider it alongside the contextual vegetarian/vegan ethics of ecofeminism in order to propose a new vegetarian ethics that is constantly renewed through critical dialogues. In the current trend of the posthuman or animal turn in the humanities and social sciences at home and abroad, Derrida’s late philosophy of the animal has attracted attention in that it strongly criticizes the anthropocentrism of existing Western philosophy and sharply problematizes the limit and relations between the human and the animal. However, Derrida’s “ambiguous” stance on vegetarianism, a practice that resists meat eating as the most common form of human-animal relationship in modern urban society, is little known in Korea. By introducing Derrida’s position on vegetarianism and the critical dialogues surrounding it, this article argues for a move away from the rule-based and universalist ethics that dominate academic discussions on the topic in Korea. It also seeks to provide a richer theoretical foundation for vegetarianism as a practice that puts the brakes on the global capitalist system that exhausts the lives of humans and nonhuman animals alike, through a connection to ecofeminist ethics that emphasizes the importance of context. In doing so, this study would go a step further than repeating the familiar and valid argument that vegetarianism is not an obligation, and argue that, at least in the specific context of the here and now, practicing vegetarianism as much as possible is “eating well.”

Arts-based research, animal studies and Pavlov’s dogs: making the familiar strange in psychology

ABSTRACT In this article I report on the novel use of arts-based research to explore the lives of experimental animals in Ivan Pavlov’s physiological and psychological studies. I describe the collaborative production of two artefacts - a graphic novel and a public art installation consisting of a series of three-dimensional scale models. Both artefacts were designed to reimagine and re-present the detail of the lives and treatment of the dogs in Pavlov’s care, as entangled in wider human-animal relationships and events. I discuss the arts-based research process involved and reflect on the outcomes in relation to two objectives: to bring critical developments of ‘the animal turn’, animal studies and the posthumanities into contact with Psychology as a discipline; and to contribute to the development of methods concerned with addressing the complexity of human-animal and multispecies relationships. Finally I consider the broader potential of arts-based research for challenging anthropocentrism and fostering alternatives.

Hybrid governance and welfare standards for broiler chickens raised for human consumption

AbstractThis article examines the welfare standards that govern the lives of chickens raised for meat in Australia and the United Kingdom. While ‘meat chickens’ are subject to a wide range of welfare interventions, we focus on the development and implications of the ‘private’ standards which are the most significant determinants of meat chicken welfare in these jurisdictions: the RSPCA Approved Farming Scheme in Australia and the Red Tractor Chicken Assurance Scheme in the United Kingdom. While the jurisdictions appear to have a similar regime that favours private regulation, differences in the origins and governance of these systems can be identified, offering insights into the use of hybrid regulation in areas associated with the welfare of non‐human animals. The similarities and differences in these countries point to the importance of individual relationships, as well as supply chain power in the adoption of private standards as a response to comparatively unstructured community concerns about welfare (Australia) and welfare and food safety (United Kingdom). While hybridity as a form of new public governance can be seen to facilitate innovative and varied responses to state devolution, the article concludes the overarching anthropocentrism of policymakers and the policy sciences explains a closed, incremental, and conservative form of practice in this area. Observations of the wider ‘animal turn’ in the social sciences are recommended to consider future systems of hybrid regulation that are not centred on anthropocentrism and more fully expand hybridity's participatory promise.Points for practitioners Hybrid governance can focus on the use of hybrid organisational design and/or hybrid regulatory practice; each has very different characteristics and their respective use is often a function of local conditions and situations. Hybrid standards‐making systems need to be open to public participation in development and implementation (oversight), or risk capture and moral hazard. Public policy is largely predicated on strong anthropocentrism, which can be addressed through the use of critical rather than simple pluralism to expand the number of interests captured in regulatory practices.

Anthrozoology and Philosophical Practice

Parallel to the philosophical practice movement that was revived in the 80s, human-animal studies, sometimes known as anthrozoology or animal studies, is gaining more and more ground to this day in the Western academic world. In my paper I demonstrate today’s dog keepers, as the walking philosophers of the 21th century, by outlining the turns of thought leading to the discipline of human-animal studies through Harriet Ritvo’s 2007 animal turn. With the examination of the social role of XXI. century Western urban dog keeping in the light of the philosophical café movement, I argue for the idea that urban dog keeping is an alternative form of philosophical lifestyle, moreover, a significant example of philosophical practice. If we accept the thesis that the dog has always been present next to humans, then the relevant question is how it is present in humans’ lives now, and if it is different than before, then what are the reasons behind this. Analyzing Ritvo’s animal turn and the practical turn in philosophy, I draw conclusions regarding the reasons for the changes in the post human, arriving at the presentation of the idea of critical dog studies, in short dogism, which is the author’s research area and invention.

Casting Justice Before Swine: Late Mediaeval Pig Trials as Instances of Human Exceptionalism

In recent years, several cases about the legal personhood of nonhuman animals garnered global attention, e.g. the recognition of ‘basic rights’ for the Argentinian great apes Sandra and Cecilia. Legal scholars have embraced the animal turn, blurring the once sovereign boundaries between persons and objects, recognising nonhuman beings as legal subjects. The zoonotic origins of the Covid-19 pandemic stress the urgency of establishing ‘global animal law’ and deconstructing anthropocentrism. To this end, it is vital to also consider the extensive premodern legal history that humans share with other animals. Over 200 so-called animal trials have been documented in premodern Europe. In these proceedings, certain nonhuman animals—particularly domestic pigs—were prosecuted, often resulting in their capital punishment or anathema. This paper takes a history of ideas approach to these historical instances where Western philosophy of law and philosophical anthropology intersect, problematising the notion that such trials constitute wholesome precedents of the kind of legal personhood presently debated in jurisprudence. My counter-hegemonic analysis of the legal prosecution and execution of several pigs in fifteenth-century France demonstrates that late mediaeval notions of criminality transcended the alleged human-nonhuman divide whilst reaffirming and reifying human distinctiveness. I propose that pig trials were local laboratories where Christian communities reflected upon the natural hierarchy of God’s creation. Ensuing the apparent breach of the prescribed boundaries of nature, these communities renegotiated and re-naturalised everyday interspecies sociability by utilising the offending animals to exemplify particular norms about what it means to be human, generally to the animals’ detriment.

From Child–Animal Relations to Multispecies Assemblages and Other-Than-Human Childhoods

This article discusses how childhood studies could be enriched with a focus on child–animal relations, multispecies assemblages and other-than-human childhoods. First, research on child–animal relations prior to, and at, the animal turn is presented. It is argued that the dominant utilitarian and adult-centered views respond poorly to the significance children themselves see in their relations with other-than-human animals. The article then moves on to the concept of multispecies assemblages. Viewing childhoods as multispecies from the outset allows one to draw attention to the specific and situated relationalities amidst natural, cultural, technological, economic, and political forces. Finally, attention is drawn to other-than-human childhoods. The differences, hierarchies, connections and unequal possibilities that arise from being born and growing up as a member of a distinct species amidst societal processes are discussed. Additionally, childhood is suggested to be an important concept through which to give detail, specificity, and a critical edge to the work of multispecies research.

LA SPECIALE NATURA DEI SOGNI E I DIRITTI DEGLI ANIMALI NEI <em>TRÄUME</em> DI JOHANN GOTTLOB KRÜGER (1754)

Without a doubt, the issue of animal rights has now become part of the socio-cultural perspective in a much stronger moral and legal sense than in the past, in the wake of the “animal turn” of the early 90s of the last century. One aspect that has been most debated since ancient times is, however, whether animals have a soul and whether the lack of speech can be considered a symptom of a completely inferior capacity for reasoning. The era of the European Enlightenment certainly showed a peak of interest in this debate, especially on the basis of scientific experiments carried out on animals, but also on the basis of reflections on the natural law of living beings. In Germany, as part of the medical studies in Halle, Johann Gottlob Krüger distinguished himself for having grasped the importance of the considerations - albeit sometimes paradoxical - that had emerged in the context of several interdisciplinary symposiums held in Leipzig at the beginning of the years’ 40 of the eighteenth century on the theme of the soul of animals. The classical philologist Johann Heinrich Winkler had published them later, in 1745, in a volume entitled Philosophische Untersuchungen von dem Seyn und Wesen der Seelen der Thiere […], already preceded by another from 1742, dedicated to a similar topic. The point of interest, however, consists in the particular literary strategy with which Krüger returns these debates of an academic nature, taking advantage of the register of satire to make animals and men and animals of various species interact with each other. In the fictitious dimension of the dream, in which the Hallense physician situates these disputes, it is possible to retrace the various theoretical stages that in the philosophical field accompanied the development of the vexata quaestio relating to the soul of animals, reviewing the positions of Girolamo Rorario (1485-1556), of the surgeon Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (1533-1619), of Montaigne (1533-1592), of Descartes (1596-1650) and of the iatroteologist Michael Alberti (1682-1757). What matters most, however, are the absurd theoretical justifications that human thought pushes to legitimize its unfair attitude towards the animal world, well highlighted in Krüger’s literary dreams.

Jaws, anthropocentrism and cinema as a monster-making machine

Jaws () is a film in which a shark is depicted as a monster. Readings and analyses of the film routinely describe the shark as a monster, and pleasures associated with the film rest on audiences reading the animal as such. The book the film is adapted from constructs the shark in similar ways, but there are notable differences between the two. This article examines how the film constructs the shark as a monster, with particular reference to differences between the book and film. It focuses specifically on the story-telling and representational norms associated with each medium, indicating how cinema’s centring of the audio-visual is fundamental to its monster-making processes. Drawing on work from the ‘animal turn’ this article demonstrates cinema’s embedded anthropocentrism and points to the implications this has for non-humans outside of cinema.

Toward equality: Including non-human animals in studies of lived religion and nonreligion.

This article explores how sociologists of religion can respond to 'the animal turn' in studies of lived religion and nonreligion. We begin by considering how sociology has neglected the place of non-human animals and the 'more than human' in social life. We then turn to the sociology of religion, where animals have often been devalued or ignored as irrelevant to understanding religion in society. We argue that it is necessary to consider the ways in which human activities are shaped by non-human animals. This does not mean that animals should be thought of as nonreligious or religious. We contend that the failure to incorporate non-human animals in sociological considerations of religion and nonreligion replicates a hierarchical model, which sees human life as above or higher than non-human life and calls our attention to the place of sociological research amid the climate crisis.

Role of Power and Frequency Characteristics of the Cardiorespiratory System in Conditions of Minimal Physical Exercise

It is our point of view that it is necessary to study in more detail and consistently the dynamics of joint reactions of respiration and blood circulation during physical load. The study aims to determine which component of the cardiorespiratory system is a more labile parameter in forming the body's adaptive reactions in minimal physical loads. The objectives of the study are to reveal the role of respiratory and cardiovascular components of the cardiorespiratory system in achieving the overall useful result during bicycle ergometry exercises of minimal power and to make a comparison of expressiveness changes in respiratory amplitude and its rate as well as to carry out comparing human cardiorespiratory system activity and the one in animals. Healthy young people of both sexes were examined. They were provided with standard stages of short-term physical exercise load ranging from negligible to moderate. A bicycle ergometer with a pedaling rhythm of 40 per minute was used to ensure this. Before loading, at its peak, and after it, spirography, pulsometry, and tonometry were performed. These parameters were obtained for each subject simultaneously. The principles of forming cardiorespiratory interaction, revealed in the given study in humans, corresponded with the parameters of baro - and chemoreflex obtained by us earlier in acute experiments on cats. The statistical analysis was carried out using Statistica ® 7.0 package (StatSoft Inc., USA). The results' significance was assessed using Student's t-test and sign test. At minimal physical exercises, pulmonary ventilation is performed through more pronounced changes in respiratory amplitude and less markedly through respiratory rate variations. Under given conditions, domination of the respiratory system, activity was proved to be most effective. Arterial pressure and pulse react least of all. First, the systemic blood pressure increases, and the changes in cardiac frequency activity are realized last. In such cases, this parameter even can remain unchanged. The principles that define the different intensities of cardiorespiratory system components' activity for human organisms and animals turn out to be similar.

The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First Century Perspectives Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary between Humans and Animals

<i>The Thirteenth-Century Animal Turn: Medieval and Twenty-First Century Perspectives</i> <i>Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary between Humans and Animals</i>

Do “Animals” Have Histor(ies)? Can/Should Humans Know Them? A Heuristic Reframing of Animal-Human Relationships

AbstractThe Western history discipline has recently experienced a growing appreciation of animals as subjects of historical concern, part of what has been described as the “animal turn” in the humanities. While briefly examining some historiographical points related to this burgeoning trend, this article looks to the question of whether animals have history itself as a device to reframe the relationship humans have with both animals and history. Through this process, this article highlights how respecting the unknown possibility and the possibility of the unknown history from the animal perspective recasts the inquiry into “history” as a parochial human endeavor, entangled in the limits of human knowledge, perception, and frailty. It is this same human frailty that explains why humans must understand animal history if only from a human perspective—because humans have fundamentally depended on animals for their survival and development in their own history. Taking these points together, this article asserts that appreciating the existence (and weakness) of the human lens gives new meaning and a sense of humility to the inquiry into animal history, such as how animal history may be better understood in the plural (“histories”), how humans might be freed from universal history and human exceptionalism, and how this humility encourages more ethical treatment of animals.

Animality in Contemporary Italian Philosophy

Animality in Contemporary Italian Philosophy

Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives

Animals and Human Society in Asia: Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives