Teaching and Learning Guide for: Animals and Sociology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sociology Compass, 2008
This paper outlines some of the major theoretical contributions of the specialty field known as 'animals and society'. It examines three areas of focus within the field. One of these areas finds connections between our exploitation of animals and other forms of domination and oppression. Consequently, this body of research provides insight into how we might challenge and overcome inequality, more generally. A second area examines animal abuse and questions entrenched assumptions about the link between cruelty to animals and violence directed toward humans. This research also reveals that animals are often victims and pawns in domestic violence. A third area uses human-animal interaction to challenge dominant sociological views of the self. By doing so, this work expands our knowledge of what it means to live in a social world. Overall, the scholarly work within the field of animals and society suggests that the inclusion of animals in sociological research can expand and clarify existing theories and concepts.
Introduction: Human-Animal Relations
Environment and Society: Advances in Research, vol. 4, 2013
In studying the lives and livelihoods of human beings, the social sciences and humanities oft en fi nd their lines of inquiry tugged in the direction of other, nonhuman beings. When Claude Lévi-Strauss (1963) suggested that "thinking with" animals was relevant and fruitful to the study of humankind, scholars began to follow these leads with academic rigor, enthusiasm, and creativity. Propelled into the new millennium by the passion of the environmental movement, compounded by natural and anthropogenic disaster, and now entrenched in the discourse of the Anthropocene, recent scholarship has simultaneously called into question the validity of human exceptionalism and expanded our social and political worlds to include animals and myriad other nonhuman beings. Th is move is paradoxical: as the signifi cance of human action on this planet has increased, the category of the human is continually challenged and redrawn. While contemporary posthumanist critique rethinks the importance of animals and strives to destabilize long-standing ontological exceptions, it does so just as the eff ects of human presence overwhelmingly single out our species as the dominant agents of planetary change (see Chakrabarty 2009; Steff en, Crutzen, and McNeill 2007).
Considering Animals: Contemporary Studies in Human-Animal Relations
Annals of Science, 2013
In 2005 a small group of academics gathered at the University of Western Australia for a modest yet highly significant interdisciplinary conference focused on scholarship in the emerging field of human-animal studies. A critical mass of academics from the University of Tasmania attended that first conference and pledged to host a second human-animal studies conference two years later. True to their word a second human-animal studies conference was held in Hobart, Australia, in 2007. The organisers called the second conference "Considering Animals" and the book under review here is a compilation of papers presented at that conference. The first striking feature of the book Considering Animals (hardback version), is the artwork on the dust jacket (Figure 1). While some may not pay a book's dust jacket much heed, I view Considering Animals stunning cover-art as quite a coup. In an age of publishing rationalisation and belt-tightening, I imagine that the editors must have fought hard for permission to display a colour image on the book's cover; and for the inclusion of such a large number of pictures throughout the book. If this is the case, then their persistence paid off. Not only is Yvette Watt's cover-art beautiful and thought provoking in and of itself, it also serves to remind readers that this book is dealing with a highly interdisciplinary field of academic inquiry. Human-animal studies is not only about words. It is about images, representation, art and interpretation. One of the most noteworthy features of the biannual Australian Animal Studies Group, and the Minding Animals, conferences is the extent to which visual and other creative artists contribute to the field. With the use of such powerful cover-art the editors give effect to the contribution made by creative arts to the emerging discipline of human-animal studies. The book opens with a forward by well-known ecologist Marc Becoff and an introduction by two of the book's editors: Carol Freeman and Elizabeth Leane. The remainder of the book consists of 14 papers by (often prominent) academics, all of who presented at the 2007 University of Tasmania "Considering Animals" conference.
Exploring the Animal Turn: Human-animal relations in Science, Society and Culture
2014
Animals' omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and ye tremarkably distant from humans. Human and animal lives have always been entangled, but the way we see and practice the relationships between humans and animals - as close, intertwined, or clearly separate - varies from time to time and between cultures, societies, and even situations. By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its...
2014
Animals´ omnipresence in human society makes them both close to and yet remarkably distant from humans. Human and animal lives have always been entangled, but the way we see and practice the relationships between humans and animals – as close, intertwined, or clearly separate – varies from time to time and between cultures, societies, and even situations. By putting these complex relationships in focus, this anthology investigates the ways in which human society deals with its co-existence with animals. The volume was produced within the frame of the interdisciplinary “Animal Turn”-research group which during eight months in 2013–2014 was hosted by the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies, Lund university, Sweden. Along with invited scholars and artists, members of this group contribute with different perspectives on the complexities and critical issues evoked when the human-animal relationship is in focus. The anthology covers a wide range of topics: From discussions on new disciplinary paths and theoretical perspectives, empirical case-studies, and artistic work, towards more explicitly critical approaches to issues of animal welfare. Phenomena such as vegansexuality, anthropomorphism, wildlife crimes, and the death of honey-bees are being discussed. How we gain knowledge of other species and creatures is one important issue in focus. What does, for example, the notion of wonderment play in this production of knowledge? How were species classified in pre-Christian Europe? How is the relationship between domesticated and farmed animals and humans practiced and understood? How is it portrayed in literature, or in contemporary social media? Many animals are key actors in these discussions, such as dogs, cows, bees, horses, pigeons, the brown bear, just to mention a few, as well as some creatures more difficult to classify as either humans or animals. All of these play a part in the questions that is at the core of the investigations carried out in this volume: How to produce knowledge that creates possibilities for an ethically and environmentally sustainable future.
Taylor TASA A Sociology for other animals text 2017 (read in conjunction with slides)
In this piece I wrestle with the question of what a sociology of other animals is for. For me, this is tied to a bigger question of what kind of research we do – and how we do it-in the neoliberal university. In my view, we need to develop some clarity (although not uniformity) in purpose about why we, as sociologists, study human relations with other animals. While there are some excellent tools available in sociological thought to study the various ways humans interact with other species, and the institutions within which this interaction occurs, my view is that if our aims are not in some way emancipatory for the animals involved, then we should rethink our focus and avoid sociological questions about animals altogether. To do otherwise, is to collude with master narratives that position animals as either irrelevant or as existing primarily, if not exclusively, for human benefit. I say this because approaches claiming to be apolitical and that do not seek, in some way, to better the lives of other species, ultimately reconstitute animals as objects, in this instance, objects to be studied. Just as ethical researchers have a duty to dignify their human participants and not treat them as exploitable commodities, the same needs to apply to sociologists who work with/for (other) animals.
Human-Animal Relations and the Link to Society
This year's conference is particularly significant as its theme, The Link, canvasses not only animal issues but also the community at large, as it studies the acknowledged link between animal cruelty and human abuse. The content of the conferences may be disturbing to some, exposing as it will the underbelly of society as violence invades our homes, and women, children and animals suffer. However, we must expose it to combat it.
WHAT THE COURSE IS ABOUT When we think of 'society' or use the word in the social sciences, there is typically no animal in the picture we see with our mind's eye. Yet, social life is something we have in common with animals in more than one way. A fundamental orientation to social existence is something humans share with other species: animals know how to do 'society,' too, no problem here, thank you very much. Many of us share their lives with animals in a variety of roles and forms of companionship. The civilizations we built were built in deep partnerships with animals, and animals are even our partners for us to represent our own society and selves to ourselves. Last but not least, and however forgetful we humans tend to be of the place and role of animals in what we call society, it is something that animals themselves cannot ignore: there is virtually no place on Earth today where animal life is not impacted, often in troubling, destructive ways, by human society. When we think of 'society' or use the word in the social sciences, there is typically no animal in the picture we see with our mind's eye-and no doubt there should be. This course is about correcting that. Using the works of anthropologists and other scholars, we will conduct a sustained exploration of the many ways and forms in which we are in the world together with animals-and in which animals are part of us, and us part of animals. In doing so, we will look at a variety of tools and methods for a rigorous investigation of human-animal entanglements, and think hard about how such an investigation requires us to revise our understanding of the social.