A sociology for other animals: analysis, advocacy, intervention (original) (raw)
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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.
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In this article, we ask why is it that sociology has been slow to take up the animal challenge, and ask what would happen if it did. We argue that sociology’s fraught relationship with biology, its assumptions about human exceptionalism and its emergence in the context of industrialization and urbanization are key to understanding its lack of attention to animals and contribute to a limited conceptualization of society. This can be remedied by viewing non-human animals as involuntarily embedded in social relationships, a move which involves a redefinition of the social and of what it means to be human; a revision of notions of agency, subjectivity and reflexivity; and a rejection of the speciesism and anthropocentrism on which sociology is based. Finally, the article contends that a full understanding of society is not possible if we continue to direct the sociology gaze only at humans.
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Taylor TASA A Sociology for other animals text 2017
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.
Beasts and boundaries: An introduction to animals in sociology, science and society
Qualitative Sociology Review, 2007
Traditionally, sociology has spent much more time exploring relationships between humans, than between humans and other animals. However, this relative neglect is starting to be addressed. For sociologists interested in human identity construction, animals are symbolically important in functioning as a highly complex and ambiguous “other”. Theoretical work analyses the blurring of the human-animal boundary as part of wider social shifts to postmodernity, whilst ethnographic research suggests that human and animal identities are not fixed but are constructed through interaction. After reviewing this literature, the second half of the paper concentrates on animals in science and shows how here too, animals (rodents and primates in particular) are symbolically ambiguous. In the laboratory, as in society, humans and animals have unstable identities. New genetic and computer technologies have attracted much sociological attention, and disagreements remain about the extent to which humana...