Animals, Society and Culture Lecture 18 Understanding the social and cultural positioning of animals...
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Transcript of Animals, Society and Culture Lecture 18 Understanding the social and cultural positioning of animals...
Animals, Society and Culture
Lecture 18Understanding the social and cultural positioning of animals
2013-14
Lecture outline Explanations relying on
structures/systems – macro-level, societal explanations
Explanations looking at micro-level interactions
Explanations which question the idea of an explanation at all
Draw out their different implications for understandings of personhood, agency, selfhood, society
Science studies (or STS) Critique of modernist distinction
between culture and nature, human and animal, masculine and feminine, rational and emotional – dualist ontology
Sociology linked to modernity Culture and society about humans,
nature and biology about animals
Hunter-gatherers No opposition between nature and
culture, body and mind Engage with the world and each other
as entire persons not disembodied minds
Interagentivity – beings with capacity for independent action
Contrasts with intersubjectivity – engagement of minds
Personhood
Humans and non-humans have ontological equivalence
Humans and geese are outward forms of personhood
Unity underpins differentiation
Structural explanations Hunter-gatherer – egalitarian human-
animal relationships, animal personhood Pastoralists – domination but care and
protection too Agricultural – animals as source of power,
prime movers Industrial capitalist – intensive
exploitation, animals not seen as persons
Nibert
Oppression of animals rooted in socio-economic structure of society
Expressed culturally and ideologically Economic exploitation of animal other Social power reflected in politics and the
state Ideology of speciesism which legitimates
exploitation and domination
Spanish royals hunting
CITES (Convention on Trade in Endangered Species)
Interlocking systems of oppression ‘the oppression of various devalued
groups in human societies is not independent and unrelated; rather the arrangements that lead to various forms of oppression are integrated in such a way that the exploitation of one group frequently augments and compounds the mistreatment of others’ (Nibert, 2002:4 cited in Cudworth, 2011:49).
Systems approach
Franklin – modernity and post-modernity
Bulliet – post-domesticity (domesticity began with shift to pastoralism, domestication)
Agency
Nibert doesn’t consider agency Relation between agency and
structure central to sociology Relations of inequality provide
context for action, agency is shaped by positioning in social relations (Carter and Charles, 2011)
Combining structure and agency
5 sub-systems Production relations (the economic) Reproduction and Domestication Governance Violence Cultures of exclusive humanism
(Cudworth, 2011:70)
Anthroparchy
Human domination Non-human animals can’t bring about
social change Dependent on humans to challenge the
social domination of species Can’t exercise collective agency but can
exercise individual agency (Carter and Charles, 2011)
Individual and structures linked through notion of agency
Micro-level analyses
Phenomenology – interagentivity Symbolic interaction - animals
have sense of agency ‘capacity for self-willed action’ (Irvine, 2004) -
Focus on inter-subjectivity ANT – agency is an effect, ability to
have an effect within a network
Decentres the human Hybrids Relationships between material objects
and symbolic concepts – material semiotics (Hurn, 2012)
Sheepdog trial can be seen as network which includes Human shepherd Flock of sheep Sheepdog Pen Crook
Sheepdog trials
Where does this leave us?
Various explanations Some challenge very idea of society
constructed in opposition to nature Networks important rather than
patterned social relations Decentre the human, dismantle the
species barrier
Summary (1) Macro/ societal level explanations (capitalism,
post-modernity, post-domesticity, anthroparchy) Micro-level explanations Importance of connecting up macro and micro-level
explanations through notion of agency Different ways of understanding/defining agency
As relating to positioning in system of social relations (Archer, Carter and Charles, Cudworth)
As being a property of actants in network which have effects (ANT)
As being capacity for self-willed action (Irvine) As being capacity for independent action (Hurn,
Ingold)
Summary (2) These explanations and analyses recognise that the social
is multi-species and try to de-centre the human – post-human
Sociology, and social sciences more generally, are part of the shift in human-animal relations identified by Franklin and Bulliet as dating from the 1970s and as relating to:
Distancing of urban populations from animal reproduction and slaughter
Animal rights movements which challenge exclusion of animals from moral community
Scientific evidence of animal cognition, intentionality, emotion etc
This undermines species barrier (which was set up by religion,
philosophy and science) questions the division of the world into society and culture, on
the one hand, and nature, on the other
Student feedback and NSS
module evaluations available at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/sociology/undergrad/current/moduleevaluation
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