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.

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.

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 Village Dogs in Coastal Mexico

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 510-530
Author(s):  
Eliza Ruiz-Izaguirre ◽  
Paul Hebinck ◽  
Karen (C.H.A.M.) Eilers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Health ◽  
The Social ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Local Narratives

Abstract Village dogs are important for households in coastal Mexico, yet they are seen as out of place by etic stakeholders (public health and wildlife experts, and animal welfarists). Caregivers of village dogs are considered irresponsible, a view that is reinforced by Mexican policy. We describe two contrasting etic discourses in this article that have emerged from ideologies based on human-dog relation theories. The article is part of an ongoing shift in the social sciences that has seen attempts to move beyond anthropocentrism and to explore human-animal relations outside the parameters of the traditional nature-culture dichotomy. Local narratives hinge on different experiences with dogs. Villagers perceive their dogs as adults, capable of and subject to judgment. Etic discourses are currently the basis for dog management policies. Attaching the label of “irresponsible owner” to the caregivers of village dogs prevents their inclusion as legitimate participants in policy processes.

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.

scholarly journals Global Animal Law: What It Is and Why We Need It

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Peters
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Global Regulation ◽  
Animal Law ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Global Concern ◽  
Human Animal

AbstractThe symposium collection in this issue ofTEL, consisting of four articles including this framing article, seeks to conceptualize and flesh out a new branch of law and legal research: global animal law. The starting hypothesis is that contemporary animal law must be global or transnational (that is, both transboundary and multilevel) in order to be effective. In times of globalization, all aspects of (commodified) human−animal interactions (from food production and distribution, working animals and uses in research, to breeding and keeping of pets) possess a transboundary dimension. Animal welfare has become a global concern, which requires global regulation. This foreword introduces the three symposium articles, sketches out the research programme of global animal law and links its emergence to the ongoing ‘animal turn’ in the social sciences, including political philosophy.

scholarly journals Notes from a field: A qualitative exploration of human-animal relations in a volunteer shepherding project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Adams ◽  
James Ormrod ◽  
Sarah Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Animal Interaction ◽  
Qualitative Exploration

There is a burgeoning interest in human–animal relations across the social sciences and humanities, accompanied by an acceptance that nonhuman animals are active participants in countless social relations, worthy of serious and considered empirical exploration. This article, the first of its kind as far as the authors are aware, reports on an ongoing qualitative exploration of an example of contemporary human–animal interaction on the fringes of a British city: volunteer shepherding (‘lookering’). Participants are part of a conservation grazing scheme, a growing phenomenon in recent years that relies on increasingly popular volunteer programmes. The primary volunteer role in such schemes is to spend time outdoors checking the welfare of livestock. The first section of the article summarises developments in more-than-human and multispecies research methodologies, and how the challenges of exploring the non- and more-than-human in particular are being addressed. In the second section, we frame our own approach to a human–animal relation against this emerging literature and detail the practicalities of the methods we used. The third section details some of our findings specifically in terms of what was derived from the peculiarities of our method. A final discussion offers a reflection on some of the methodological and ethical implications of our research, in terms of the question of who benefits and how from this specific instance of human–animal relations, and for the development of methods attuned to human–animal and multispecies relations more generally.

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.

scholarly journals Social Scientific Analysis of Human-Animal Sexual Interactions

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1780
Author(s):  
José María Valcuende del Río ◽  
Rafael Cáceres-Feria
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Ontological Shift ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Medical Perspective

An ontological shift has led to a revitalisation of the research area that, within the social sciences, deals with the interactions between humans and animals. However, there are topics which are still taboo: interspecies sexuality. Sexual practices between humans and animals have been fundamentally analysed from a medical perspective, failing to consider the influence of cultural context. Departing from a thorough bibliographical revision, here we revise the approaches that, both from sociology and anthropology, have been used to analyse this phenomenon from different perspectives, including bestiality, zoophilia, and zoosexuality.

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