Human-nonhuman Animal Relations Research Articles

The post-disaster transformation of interspecies dependencies: From talkative buffalo to desemiotized cows on the slope of Mt. Merapi

This paper suggests how natural disasters may serve as the final propulsion for changes already taking place within a society. While focusing on shifts in human–non-human animal relations, this text also discusses their embedding in broader transformations of human–environment relations and the underlying economic and cultural change. It carves out interspecific dependencies that constitute an agro-ecosystem and follows their demise as the agricultural species are switched to market economic production in a post-disaster context. It thereby suggests that the human-facilitated semiotic fitting of the agricultural species is replaced by human-imposed fitting in which the species composition is largely determined by the market prices. At the same time, the paper draws attention to the cessation and transformation of human–non-human communication as a marker, but also an experiential corollary, of modernization and market economy. As a case study, it focuses on the 2010 Mt. Merapi eruption in Indonesia and its aftermath in the villages on its slope. The study analyses how the shift from using plough buffalo to utilizing market economic cattle farming reflects not just an economic, but also an affective and semiotic change stemming from a shift in the intensity and kind of human–animal relations.

Heritage with cows. Conserving Nordic human and nonhuman animals

ABSTRACT This paper takes a critical heritage approach to understanding the ways that the conservation of Nordic Mountain cows gets animated as a form of Nordic heritage. Today, Nordic Mountain cows are found in the Northern regions of Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Based on an archive of mediated material (websites, YouTube videos, and social media activism), policy documents as well as interviews with Nordic farm animal genetic resources directors, the paper analyzes how conservation becomes imagined. Viewing the conservation of Nordic Mountain cows as entangled with imaginaries of traditional ways of life, a Northern Nordic (endangered) landscape, and the potential for high quality, ethically sound Nordic heritage products; conservation gets imagined as a rescue technology preserving ‘native’ and ‘endangered’ breeds in the making of sustainable consumer goods and Nordic cultural heritage. The conservation of Nordic Mountain cows goes beyond the potentially endangered species, however, to the reiteration of Nordic exceptionalism and the promise of a pure (and white) Nordic biocultural refuge of human-nonhuman animal relations.

Becoming (Non)Human. Animal Representations in the ATU 514 Fairy Tale

"Within the rising ecocriticism in literary studies, a valuable resource for reconfiguring what it means to be (non)human is found in fairy tales, featuring animal agency, transspecies interactions, hybridities, and shapeshifting. With this in mind, the present paper tackles the nonhuman imaginary in the Romanian version of the ATU 514 tale type, i.e. shift of sex, which clearly deviates from the heroic pattern, since the protagonist is the emperor’s daughter, who is cross-dressed and then metamorphosed into Prince Charming. But does this relaxation of gender norms generate a similar disruption of the position of the animal in magical thinking? In a close reading of the fairy tale corpus, human-nonhuman animal relations are examined bidirectionally, focusing on the one hand, on the master initiator’s transbiology (the emperor disguised in animal form) and on the other hand, on two opposite anthropomorphic animals (the wise guide vs. the villain, the horse vs. the genie). Through a hybrid methodology, these transgressive possibilities are explored by combining ritualistic-anthropological, corporeal, and psycho-social aspects with current posthuman concerns. Overall, the analysis of such ontologically ambiguous narratives reveals one of the ways in which these old tales can still be read today to subvert traditional anthropocentric structures. Keywords: animal studies, fairy tales, posthumanism, ATU 514 tale type, human-animal relations "

Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death

Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death

Paid Companions: Human-Nonhuman Animal Relations in Japanese Animal Cafés

Abstract Animal cafés, a type of business where customers pay by the hour to spend time relaxing with nonhuman animals and other animal lovers, became popular in Japan during the late 2000s as part of the iyashi, or healing, boom. Young Japanese customers in need of positive affective experiences to address feelings, economic and social precarity turn to businesses like these to meet their emotional needs, engaging socially with animals in a commodified space. This article explores the kinds of intimate bonds that are created between the human customer and animal “staff” in these contexts, where customers engage with animals on their own terms, enjoying their companionship without any long-term responsibility for their care, and the effect this has on the lives of the café animals.

Animals on Display: The Zoocurriculum of Museum Exhibits

Museums have been viewed as valuable education resources as well as sites of reproduction of colonialist narratives about the “other.” This article, based on ethnographic field studies of school visits to museums and drawing on postcolonial critique in visual culture and critical education theory, analyzes two different museum exhibitions and the human-nonhuman animal relations they produce. Different agendas seem to be at work at the two museums; one inviting a conventional zoological gaze of “exoticism,” and the other interrogating issues of power inherent in human-nonhuman animal relations. I argue that the pedagogical messages produced by particularly the natural history museum are part of a generic zoocurriculum; a species-coded hidden curriculum structuring human-animal boundary work by delimiting and separating human and animal subject positions. However, student responses to both museum displays indicate that their own interpretive framework largely operated in the opposite direction as the stuffed and dismembered animals seemed to invoke reflections on mortality that facilitated students’ self-identification with them.

Significance of Horses: Control Legislation and Impact on Irish Travellers

AbstractThis paper documents the significance of horses to Irish Travellers, on several fronts, to demonstrate their unusual relationship with horses as companion animals and as work animals in a non-farm context. Their multiple attachments and engagement are analyzed in the context of the literature in human–nonhuman animal relations and animal geographies, which helps illuminate the ways in which horses have shaped Traveller geographies and identities, and how these associations have become politicized. The 1996 Control of Horses Act has led to greater restrictions on the keeping of horses; the impact of the loss of this animal from Traveller daily life is discussed. This research also helps fill a gap in the literature on horses and urban and rural landscapes in Ireland, which has to date largely excluded Travellers.

Large Llamas with Silver Shoes

Drawing upon contemporary accounts, this paper analyzes conquistadors’ and Incas’ perceptions of each other’s ungulates—that is, camelids and horses—from the first encounters in 1532 until 1536. The paper traces the evolution of those perceptions within the wider context of human-nonhuman animal relations, which differed between Spaniards and Andeans. Those differences are reflected in the respective languages. The paper finds a tension between a sense of familiarity and a sense of otherness. That tension manifested in a supernatural realm. The paper argues that nonhuman animal relations, particularly with respect to horses, played a central role in the invasion, but as the conflict unfolded the meanings of “human” and “animal,” as understood by the protagonists, were perturbed. The paper presents a critique of Diamond’s theory of nonhuman animal domestication.

‘A new life in the countryside awaits’: interactive lessons in the rural utopia in ‘farming’ simulation games

ABSTRACTThis paper critically analyses the legitimation of exploitative human–nonhuman animal relations in online ‘farming’ simulation games, especially the game Hay Day. The analysis contributes to a wider project of critical analyses of popular culture representations of nonhuman animals. The paper argues that legitimation is effected in Hay Day and cognate games through: the construction of idyllic rural utopias in gameplay, imagery, and soundscape; the depiction of anthropomorphized nonhumans who are complicit in their own subjection; the suppression of references to suffering, death, and sexual reproduction among ‘farmed’ animals; and the colonialist transmission of Western norms of nonhuman animal use and food practices among the global audience of players. Hay Day thereby resonates with the wider cultural legitimation of nonhuman animal exploitation through establishing emotional connections with idealized representations of nonhuman animals at the same time as they inhibit the development of awareness and empathy about the exploitation of real nonhuman animals.

The posthuman way of war

Recent interventions from a ‘posthumanist’ or ‘new materialist’ perspective have highlighted the embedded character of human systems within a ‘panarchy’ of human and non-human systems. This article brings attention to a very particular element of materiality, one with a profound significance for issues of security – relations between human and non-human animals in instances of conflict. It is an indication of the deeply human-centred character of both international relations and security studies that almost none of the central texts mention the very significant roles that non-human animals have in the conduct of war. We argue that the character of war would have been radically different but for the forced participation by an enormous range of non-human animals. Even though, with the improvements in transportation over the last century, non-human animals are less evident in the context of the movement of people and equipment, they still play a significant number of roles in the contemporary war-machines of wealthy countries. Drawing on literature from critical animal studies, sociology and memoirs, this article discusses the enormous variety of roles that non-human animals have played in the conduct of war, and examines the character of human–non-human animal relations in times of war.

The Global Pigeon

In 2002, Arnold Arluke queried the internal obstacles facing the progress of the sociological study of human-nonhuman animal relations. While we have seen an increase in sociological research in this area, there is still a clear and present misunderstanding and discounting of the importance of animals in sociology in general. The Global Pigeon should chip away at these barriers. While fundamentally a book about people’s interactions with pigeons, it is also about community, culture, race, class, identity, and environment. With the goal of understanding how humans negotiate or navigate social lives through relationships with animals, Colin Jerolmack chose to study pigeons in urban settings. While perhaps peculiar, the choice is what makes his book transcend disciplines. Jerolmack explains that we conceptualize city space as our space. We envision nonhumans in these areas only when controlled by us (i.e., gardens, parks, zoos). In reality, he notes that nonhuman life permeates all of our city space, no matter how hard we try to contain it. It is in this area of tension where he claims ‘‘we can begin to understand how the borders and contours of urban experience are shaped through cross-species encounters’’ (p. 16). Jerolmack spent three years in the field, investigating areas where pigeons are fed publicly and men who raise and fly pigeons. He conducted ethnographic case studies in New York City, Venice, London, and Berlin. His research was extensive historically, assuring full understanding of his settings. This approach allowed Jerolmack to unearth different types of interactions in diverse populations, though not for representative purposes. Indeed, pigeons are part of what Goffman (1983) calls ‘‘interaction order’’ in urban spaces, and he claims they do help shape our social lives. What we find in The Global Pigeon is that context matters. In New York, pigeonfeeding led to close relationships with pigeons for those who saw the task as a duty. For those who fed more spontaneously, pigeon-feeding often made people feel more connected to one another, even if only for brief periods in time. In Venice and London, pigeon-feeding was a cultural attraction that included vendors who relied on selling feed to make a living. Pigeons are so commonplace at the Piazza that they appear prominently in postcards and paintings. Ultimately it seemed for most that the only way to fully experience the Piazza or Trafalgar Square was through feeding the pigeons. The pigeons made these places feel authentic. Not everyone experienced pigeons this way. In fact, they are commonly equated with filth, and all three cities constructed pigeons as the bane of their cities, right up there with prostitution and other illicit activities. They were framed by officials in Venice and London as symbolic of disorder. In the end, Venetian and London officials pitted pigeons against human quality of life. These two cities could and did legislate against pigeon-feeding, though to differing degrees of success. In the end, many in Venice who saw pigeons as a nuisance and wanted to trim their numbers were compelled to support their existence. Through pigeon-feeding, Jerolmack discovered the various connections people made through interactions with pigeons. For some, relationships were melded with the birds. With others, human relationships ensued. Finally, feeding in some instances created a connection with space and location. The interactions solidified the authenticity of the place and the occasion. Jerolmack also investigates more intimate relationships between caretakers and their pigeons. For these men, the interactions helped develop self-esteem and establish a social self, community, and even national identity. In both New York and Berlin, men invested countless hours of hard work caring for pigeons despite dwindling numbers of caretakers. Some New York Flyers repeatedly spoke about the hard work and routinized care they provided, describing the work as 70 Reviews

The ‘Animal-Advocacy Agenda’: Exploring Sociology for Non-Human Animals

This paper focuses on sociology and the study of human non-human animal relations. Using as a catalyst referees' comments on a previous paper about experiments using non-human animal subjects, in this present paper three problematics are identified and discussed. These problematics centre on the ‘acceptable’ content of sociological inquiry, the ‘permissibility’ of advocacy-oriented sociology, and the ‘admissibility’ of non-human animal-advocacy to advocacy-oriented sociology. The three problematics are explored through the lens of reflexive and critical sociology. Two central questions are raised: first, should sociology include the study of nonhuman animals and secondly, can sociology advocate for non-human animals? The paper concludes with an affirmative response to both of these questions. The paper ends by stressing that sociology has so much to offer the study of human non-human animal relations. Professional sociologists have a key role to play in enabling this work to move from margins to centre in published sociology.

“Foucault and Critical Animal Studies: Genealogies of Agricultural Power”

AbstractMichel Foucault is well known as a theorist of power who provided forceful critiques of institutions of confinement such as the psychiatric asylum and the prison. Although the invention of factory farms and industrial slaughterhouses, like prisons and psychiatric hospitals, can be considered emblematic moments in a history of modernity, and although the modern farm is an institution of confinement comparable to the prison, Foucault never addressed these institutions, the politics of animal agriculture, or power relationships between humans and other animals more generally. The few times that Foucault discussed animality or human–animal relations, animals and animality remained metaphors for humans and human experiences. Despite Foucault's failure to analyze human–nonhuman animal relations, a significant body of Critical Animal Studies literature has mobilized Foucault's work over the last decade. In particular, a number of scholars have taken up Foucault's writings to consider how relations between humans and nonhuman animals in agriculture might be conceptualized as instances of sovereign power, biopower, disciplinary power, and pastoral power, as well as why we may not think that these are power relations at all. This essay provides an overview of Foucault's accounts of power and of the Foucauldian scholarship that applies these accounts to human–nonhuman animal relations in animal agriculture.

The Taste of Happiness: Free-Range Chicken

Happiness is an elusive concept, it brings about ideas of ecstasy, contentment, delight but also health and strength, pouvoir and puissance … a state of mind and body that is precarious and contingent. How to give form and substance to an idea that is otherwise difficult to conceive? What is happiness for a chicken? What is it like to be a chicken today? Free-range certification offers a powerful interpretation of animals' happiness in the context of farming, and it does so by providing a particular translation of the ‘natural’ in the domesticated environment of farming. But it also offers a specific definition of materiality, in the form of the body of the animal, presented as an expression of her/his quality of life in the juiciness and other organoleptic qualities of her/his flesh or eggs. In this paper, I present the results of an on-farm assessment of the welfare of free-range chickens in the UK, carried out by adopting the Welfare Quality® protocol. This is a new evaluation of the on-farm welfare of animals that encompasses many aspects of animals' lives, including animals' negative and positive emotions. It suggests that animals' ‘happiness' can be measured and can become part of an overall score of welfare, but it also addresses the complexities of the interpretation of the emotional states of animals. I propose that this case contributes to the debate on ‘material politics' and the invention of animals’ happiness can be seen as a political technique that affects human–non-human animal relations.

Three Faces of Advocacy: The Cove, Mine, and Food, INC.

AbstractThe Cove, Mine, and Food, INC. each use the documentary genre to advocate for change, whether in regards to mass wild animal kills, companion animals in natural disasters, or the modern food industry. The films, however, present views of human-nonhuman animal relations that vary greatly. Where The Cove regards dolphins as beings who deserve freedom, Mine explores the view of companion animals as property. Food, INC., finally, treats farm animals solely as a food source.

Two Trips across One Globe: Earth and Planet Earth Fothergill, A., & Linfield, M. (Directors). (2007). Earth [Documentary]. United States: Disneynature. Fothergill, A. (Director). (2006). Planet Earth. [Television series]. United Kingdom: BBC/Greenlight Media/Discovery Channel.

AbstractThis review explores the twin documentaries Earth and Planet Earth. Both are structured with the same goal of exploring our planet and its nonhuman animal inhabitants, but they diverge in approach. Using Disney’s “True-Life Adventure” series as an ideal, the view of human-nonhuman animal relations presented in Earth differs from the one presented in Planet Earth. While the former relies strongly on a purified image that mirrors traditional (Western, human) ideals, the latter presents an image that is both less “neat” and less reliant on attributing humanlike qualities to nonhuman animals. There are some similarities, however, especially regarding the human role in the future survival of the planet’s nonhuman animals.

Explaining Support for Animal Rights: A Comparison of Two Recent Approaches to Humans, Nonhuman Animals, and Postmodernity

AbstractQuestions on "animal rights" in a cross-national survey conducted in 1993 provide an opportunity to compare the applicability to this issue of two theories of the socio-political changes summed up in "postmodernity": Inglehart's (1997) thesis of "postmaterialist values" and Franklin's (1999) synthesis of theories of late modernity. Although Inglehart seems not to have addressed human-nonhuman animal relations, it is reasonable to apply his theory of changing values under conditions of "existential security" to "animal rights." Inglehart's postmaterialism thesis argues that new values emerged within specific groups because of the achievement of material security. Although emphasizing human needs, they shift the agenda toward a series of lifestyle choices that favor extending lifestyle choices, rights, and environmental considerations. Franklin's account of nonhuman animals and modern cultures stresses a generalized "ontological insecurity." Under postmodern conditions, changes to core aspects of social and cultural life are both fragile and fugitive. As neighborhood, community,family,and friendship relations lose their normative and enduring qualities, companion animals increasingly are drawn in to those formerly exclusive human emotional spaces.With a method used by Inglehart and a focus in countries where his postmaterialist effects should be most evident, this study derives and tests different expectations from the theories, then tests them against data from a survey supporting Inglehart's theory. His theory is not well supported. We conclude that its own anthropocentrism limits it and that the allowance for hybrids of nature-culture in Franklin's account offers more promise for a social theory of animal rights in changing times.