The compounding feminization of animal cruelty investigation work and its multispecies implications

All forms of human labour performed with and/or for animals are gendered, although not always tidily. Here we focus on animal cruelty investigation work, a particularly complicated gendered occupational case. Drawing on survey, interview and focus group data, we focus on a regionally based workforce's gendered specifics. In keeping with feminist political economy and labour process theory, we highlight both material and experiential dimensions, examining physical and psychological risks, and rewards. We argue that the gendered and multispecies entanglements of the work and the victims coalesce in the compounding feminization of cruelty investigation labour. We raise questions about the implications of the gendered and multispecies interconnections for the women and men involved, and for the animals dependent on their work.     

Considering Alternate Sources of Role Identity: Childless Parents and Their Animal “Kids”

Identity theory posits that role identity is negotiated between human social actors and is based in broader cultural expectations about how particular statuses should be performed. I argue that the formation of role identity in actors can also occur in relationship to nonhuman actors, if they are perceived as minded. Depending on context and human perception, identity can be formed as a result of interaction and developing “theory of mind” with nonhuman animals, directly implicating the animal. Using in‐depth interviews of childless and childfree companion animal owners, I demonstrate the existence of a parent identity in childless participants that would not otherwise be present were it not for interaction with the animal “child.” This identity is confirmed in participant narratives describing substantial behavioral output aligned with the U.S. cultural ideal of “parent.” Likewise, I find that significant others provide external support for the enactment of this role identity, allowing participants to verify self‐in‐situation. Overall, my analysis emphasizes the importance of considering nonhuman sources as occupying counterstatus positions in the formation of role identity while highlighting how these relationships affect interaction in the childfree and childless home, thus expanding scholarly understanding about both identity formation and emerging family types.     

More‐than‐human emotions: Multispecies emotional labour in the tourism industry

The concept of emotional labour has been subject to critique, evaluation, development and extension over the last 35 years, but it remains firmly anthropocentric. This article begins to address this shortcoming by illustrating some of the productive potential of extending the concept of emotional labour to include more‐than‐human and multispecies perspectives. Organizations are not solely human phenomena, but research usually fails to consider the role of non‐humans in work in contemporary capitalism. Using the example of trail horses in tourism, I argue that some non‐human animals should be considered workers, and that they do perform emotional labour in service to commercial organizations. More‐than‐human and multispecies perspectives capture some of the complexities of everyday organizational practices, and can inform feminist research attuned to the experiences of marginalized others, human and non‐human.     

从阳宗海污染事件看动物生命安全问题

阳宗海事件不仅是一次环境污染事故,更是一起生物物种的灭绝事件,起因是人类对动物生命安全的漠视。水中生物的减少和死亡造成的生态链条断裂才是产生环境污染问题的原因。法律与处罚在效果上无法对野生动物生命安全起到保护作用,对动物生命的保护需要防患于未然。因此,对动物具有道德这一事实的认同,对动物生命安全的保障以及生态环境的保护具有重大意义。     

历史时期四川凉山地区主要野生动物资源开发利用及其变迁

通过对历史时期四川凉山地区几种主要的野生动物开发利用及其变迁过程进行探讨,认为历史时期在人为活动的干预下凉山地区野生动物资源总的变化趋势是分布地域逐渐缩小,数量逐渐减少,但变化过程相当缓慢;人类的开发利用是造成凉山地区野生动物变迁的主要原因.     

郑和下西洋反思

通过对十五世纪中、西方远航船队的比较 ,昭示世人郑和船队的伟大。通过对郑和下西洋目的的辨析 ,阐明了明成祖朱棣和明宣宗朱瞻基派遣郑和下西洋的真实意图 ,追求“天下共主”的虚名和“贸采琛异”的耗费 ,给明朝社会经济带来了沉重打击。这是“埋葬”伟大郑和船队的根本原因     

拟兽舞蹈初探——以鄂伦春黑熊搏斗舞为中心

聚居于我国内蒙古自治区呼伦贝尔盟鄂伦春族自治旗的鄂伦春族,有一种模仿动物的舞蹈———＂黑熊搏斗舞＂,类似这种拟兽的舞蹈在中国乃至世界许多国家和地区都存在过或是现在仍有遗存。对于这种现象的研究曾经引起许多国内外专家和学者的关注。这种现象的产生根源是什么？在其民族中有什么功能和作用？本文就这一系列的问题作些简要的分析和探讨。     

The Changing Valuation of Dogs1

In recent decades, the United States has witnessed profound changes in the sociocultural valuation of dogs, variously described as humanization, sentimentalization, or sacralization. A broad look at this “sacralization” of dogs in the United States reveals that this changing valuation has altered dogs’ place within economic processes. In particular, these changes parallel Viviana Zelizer’s work on the changing valuation of children a century ago. In this article, we further specify Zelizer’s insights by arguing that these accompanying economic transformations are best understood as shifting of a dogs’ place within budgetary units: from objects for human consumption to fellow actors humans consume with and around.     

Resisting sexism and speciesism in the social sciences: Using feminist,species‐inclusive,visual methods to value the work of women and (other) animals

Visual methods offer social scientists some promising possibilities for valuing the work of women and animals in domestic homes and formal organizations, such as schools, hospitals, residential care facilities and other workplaces. In this article, we consider how visual methods might be used to ‘put women and animals in the frame’. We draw data and inspiration from our What is it About Animals study [2015–2016], which involved an online call for people over 16 years of age, to post pictures, poems, stories and videos depicting what animals mean to them. We pay attention to attempts to resist sexism and speciesism in the valuing of work, including emotional labour. We consider the possibility of post‐humanist methods for animal subject‐hood, and a sociology of animals, emotions and work. We end with a discussion of possible future visual methods projects to value the work of women and (other) animals.     

Cultures of care? Animals and science in Britain

It is becoming increasingly common to hear life scientists say that high quality life science research relies upon high quality laboratory animal care. However, the idea that animal care is a crucial part of scientific knowledge production is at odds with previous social science and historical scholarship regarding laboratory animals. How are we to understand this discrepancy? To begin to address this question, this paper seeks to disentangle the values of scientists in identifying animal care as important to the production of high quality scientific research. To do this, we conducted a survey of scientists working in the United Kingdom who use animals in their research. The survey found that being British is associated with thinking that animal care is a crucial part of conducting high quality science. To understand this finding, we draw upon the concept of ‘civic epistemologies’ (Jasanoff 2005; Prainsack 2006) and argue that ‘animals’ and ‘care’ in Britain may converge in taken‐for‐granted assumptions about what constitutes good scientific knowledge. These ideas travel through things like state regulations or the editorial policies of science journals, but do not necessarily carry the embodied civic epistemology of ‘animals’ and ‘science’ from which such modes of regulating laboratory animal welfare comes.