Human-Animal Studies, G.H. Mead, and the Question of Animal Minds

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Gallagher†
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Symbolic Language ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Contemporary Approach

In the field of human-animal studies (has), also known as anthrozoology, the question of nonhuman animal minds is central. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the social psychological G.H. Mead was among the first to take an explicitly contemporary approach to the question of mind in nature. Mead’s approach to the question of the nature of mind is consistent with contemporary science. His approach was characterized by empiricism, interdisciplinarity, comparative behavior and anatomy, and evolutionary theory. For Mead, symbolic language was required for mind as he defined it. This stipulation has been called into question by scholars today. The evidence for the nature of animal minds today suggests that a symbolic language is not required for conscious awareness, deliberation, and decision making. Nonetheless, Mead has an historical relevance to the field ofhasfor both the breadth of his work on the nature of consciousness, his contemporary approach, and the fact that some of his insights could be useful to contemporary scholars who are exploring the nature of mind, both human and nonhuman.

Entomotourism: The Allure of the Arthropod

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 733-750
Author(s):  
Raynald Harvey Lemelin ◽  
Elizabeth Y. S. Boileau ◽  
Constance Russell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Monarch Butterfly ◽  
Whale Watching ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wildlife Tourism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Tourism Studies ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Public Imagination

AbstractWildlife tourism is often associated with charismatic megafauna in the public imagination (e.g., safaris, whale watching, bear viewing). Entomotourism (insect-focused tourism) typically is not on the radar, but each year thousands of peoples visit monarch butterfly congregations and glow worm caves, and participate in guided firefly outings. Elsewhere, millions of peoples visit butterfly pavilions, insectariums, and bee museums. Calculations of visitation numbers aside, researchers in tourism studies have largely ignored the appeal of these animals, relegating these types of activities to the recreational fringe. By highlighting the popularity of entomotourism, this article challenges the vertebrate bias prevalent in the social sciences and seeks to move entomotourism from the margins to the mainstream of research on tourism in human/animal studies.

scholarly journals Daphne the Cat: Reimagining human–animal boundaries on Facebook

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1290-1306
Author(s):  
Verónica Policarpo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Human Animal

How are companion animals, and cats in particular, built as Otherness, on social media? And how are human–animal boundaries reconfigured along the flow of online digital interactions? This article tries to answer these questions drawing on the story of female cat Daphne, as reported on the official Facebook page of a Portuguese animal shelter. Based on both narrative analysis and categorical content analysis of the posts and comments around the story, the article discusses the social construction of nonhuman animals, bringing together concepts from human–animal studies, science and technology studies, and media studies. It argues that, through digital practices on social media, animals are done and undone. Two emergent and conflicting versions of the same animal, Daphne, are constructed throughout the unstable and contingent flow of digital exchanges: the-animal-victim and the-animal-maladjusted. As such, digital practices become also animal practices, contributing to normative definitions of what an animal ‘is’. As a result, human–animal boundaries are reinstalled and reinforced, and the animals themselves become, once more and paradoxically, invisible.

Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater: Towards a Sociology of the Human-Animal Abuse ‘Link’?

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nik Taylor ◽  
Tania Signal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Animal Abuse ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Interest ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Sociological Thought ◽  
Human Social Life

The prevalence of animals in society, and recognition of the multiplicity of roles they play in human social life, has invoked significant interest from certain subsections of the social sciences. However, research in this area, to date, tends to be at an empirical and inherently psychological level. It is the contention of the current article that we need to redress this imbalance if we are to create a legitimate space wherein sociology can be used to investigate human-animal relations/interactions. In order to achieve this, an examination of the foundations of sociological thought is needed. This is explored in the current article through the use of one substantive, highly topical, subject in human-animal studies: the human-animal abuse ‘link.’

scholarly journals Flocking Together: Collective Animal Minds in Contemporary Fiction

PMLA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Caracciolo
Keyword(s):  
Animal Studies ◽  
Ant Colony ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Animal Minds ◽  
Geometric Patterns ◽  
Collective Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Approaches To Literature ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Collective Agent

The remarkable coordination displayed by animal groups—such as an ant colony or a flock of birds in flight—is not just a behavioral feat; it reflects a fullfledged form of collective cognition. Building on work in philosophy, cognitive approaches to literature, and animal studies, I explore how contemporary fiction captures animal collectivity. I focus on three novels that probe different aspects of animal assemblages: animals as a collective agent (in Richard Powers's The Echo Maker), animals that communicate a shared mind through dance- like movements (in Lydia Davis's The Cows), and animals that embrace a collective “we” to critique the individualism of contemporary society (in Peter Verhelst's The Man I Became). When individuality drops out of the picture of human‐animal encounters in fiction, empathy becomes abstract: a matter of quasi‐geometric patterns that are experienced by readers through an embodied mechanism of kinesthetic resonance. (MC)

scholarly journals On the Fringe: Sheepdogs and Their Status Within Bronze Age Ontologies in Scandinavia

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-120
Author(s):  
Kristin Armstrong Oma
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depositional Patterns ◽  
Human Animal

This contribution draws mainly on images of dogs, humans and sheep from Nordic Bronze Age rock art sources, but living arrangements within the household and depositional patterns of dog bones on settlements are also considered to extrapolate an understanding of the physical reality and ontological role of sheepdogs within the social aspects of the practice of herding. I use theories from the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies to understand how socialisation, habituation and trust create a seamless choreography between human, dog and sheep.

scholarly journals Lupine Becomings—Tracking and Assembling Romanian Wolves through Multi-Sensory Fieldwork

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kieran O’Mahony ◽  
Andrea Corradini ◽  
Andrea Gazzola
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal

AbstractThis paper outlines the fieldwork methods utilized by ecologists in (re)presenting wolves in Romania. By revealing the processes and performances of this aspect of wildlife conservation, the paper highlights the complex more-than-human assemblages that make up wolf ecology. It briefly discusses the waysHAS(Human-Animal Studies) and the social sciences have addressed conservation and unpacked the oft obscured hinterland of bodies and technologies. It then blends field stories and ethnographic narrative to emphasize the multi-sensory techniques employed in non-invasive wolf research. By using this novel case, the paper contextualizes the significance of concepts such as becoming, affect, and attunement in creating partial affinities between researchers and wildlife. It argues that these contribute to an emplaced knowledge that allows practices to adapt to contingencies in field. This is important when modern, remote technologies aimed at minimizing effort in the field are seen to be a panacea for monitoring elusive wildlife.

scholarly journals Where Are the Nonhuman Animals in the Sociology of Climate Change?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Richard Twine
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Environmental Sociology ◽  
Journal Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract The emergence of interdisciplinary animal studies during recent decades challenges sociologists to critically reflect upon anthropocentric ontology and to paint a more comprehensive picture of the social. This article focuses on the recent emergence of the sociology of climate change during the last twenty years, with a warning that it may have proceeded without critical interrogation of residual humanism evidenced by the exclusion of nonhuman animals. The inclusion of these nonhuman animals in the discussion of human/animal relations is vital in the societal discourse of climate change. After surveying key texts and leading journal literature, it is clear that this discussion of human/animal relations is lacking or altogether omitted. It is then worth considering how animalized environmental sociology could contribute to redefining the discipline of sociology as a whole.

Dog at My Feet: A Moment of Identity Construction within Dissertation Acknowledgements

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-240
Author(s):  
Ruth Billany
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Generic Structure ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Human Animal

Abstract Human-animal studies (has) is a legitimate and multidisciplinary academic endeavor. In the last three decades, there has been a proliferation of articles revealing multiple ways of knowing about the human-animal relationship. This paper, informed by social psychological theories, turns the mirror upon new researchers as they emerge as professional selves into academia. Post-graduate students engage multiple and sometimes contradicting identities throughout their candidatures. The unit of analysis is the dissertation acknowledgement (da) at both a structural and functional level. The das have recently become objects of serious empirical investigation as linguistic choice promotes a situated academic, cultural, and social identity in a moment of time. This paper examines the generic structure and purpose of 104 das, with a particular focus on the student-writer’s identity with relationship to nonhuman animals in their lives. Fourteen sub-themes are subsumed into thanking, reflecting, and announcing moves. A case is made that the study of das is a potentially fecund research area for a unique moment of identity construction.

scholarly journals How Travel Earns Us Bragging Rights: A Qualitative Inquiry and Conceptualization of Travel Bragging Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 004728752096459
Author(s):  
Hongbo Liu ◽  
Xiang (Robert) Li
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Personal Values ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
The Social ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Travel Decision ◽  
Depth Interviews

Travel bragging rights have become an important factor influencing travel decision making in the social media era, yet research on this topic remains scant in the tourism literature. The present study attempted to answer the question “What constitutes travel bragging rights?” from tourists’ perspectives using in-depth interviews and means–end analysis. A comprehensive conceptualization of travel bragging rights was provided. Specifically, we identified seven dimensions of travel bragging rights. These dimensions are located on a continuum between a focus on the self and a focus on the audience and serve several social psychological functions reflecting social media posters’ (those who post content on social media) personal values. The conceptualization of travel bragging rights highlights the perception gaps between travel posters and the audience. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

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