animals, society and culture lecture 6: kinship with animals 2013-14
TRANSCRIPT
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Animals, Society and Culture
Lecture 6: Kinship with animals
2013-14
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Statistics Dogs in UK – 1963 4.4M, 2012 8M – 81.8%
increase In UK 22% of households contain at least
one dog, 70M households in Europe include at least one pet animal
550,000 jobs in Europe generated by pets Turnover of European pet food industry
and related supply and services 24 billion Euros
Annual pet food production 8M tons
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Pets as family
‘Over half of dog owners think of their pets as family members. A report by the American Animal Hospital Association found that 40% of women they surveyed said they got more affection from their dogs than from their husbands or children’. (Herzog, 2010: 8)
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Lecture outline
Emergence of modern phenomenon of pet keeping
Moral ambiguity Power, domination and pets
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Modern pet keeping Pet animals don’t have a function Kept purely for pleasure Shift from function to affect Domesticated animals were kept
because they fulfilled useful function, ‘not simply because they were affectionate or ornamental’ (Ritvo, 2008:99)
Dogs in portraits 17th and 18th centuries working dogs
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Pets and middle class
In 16th and 17th centuries pets became normal feature of middle-class households
Especially in towns where animals less likely to be functional necessities
People could afford to support ‘creatures lacking any productive value’ (Thomas, 1984: 110)
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Pets distinct from other animals
Live indoors Have names Not eaten
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Fox hound pups
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Obsessive pet keeping By 1700 had all symptoms of ‘obsessive
pet keeping’ Featured in painted family groups Aristocracy had favourite horses and
dogs painted Benjamin Marshall, a racehorse painter,
said: ‘I discover many a man who will pay me fifty guineas for painting his horse who thinks ten guineas too much to pay for painting his wife.’ (Thomas, 1984: 117)
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Substitutes for humans ‘Pets were company for the lonely,
relaxation for the tired, a compensation for the childless. They manifested those virtues which humans so often proved to lack… They were valued because they were either idealised servants who never complained or model children who never grew up. … affection for pets was seldom untinged by a touch of adult superiority and contempt’ (Thomas, 1984:118)
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Effect of keeping pets
Changed how people thought about animals
Those who wrote on behalf on animals in 18th century – like Jeremy Bentham – had close relationship with pet animals
Changed sensibilities towards animals and the natural world
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Class Aristocracy had pets before middle
classes, only relatively recently has working class had pets
Material circumstances affect pet keeping
Gender also important Pet keeping linked to domination
over and taming of nature
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Moral ambiguity
Contradiction Intelligence, personality and
character attributed to one set of animals
Another set of animals bred for food and experimented upon
Modern civilisation rests on this contradiction
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Disapproval of pet keeping Serpell, J (1996) In the company of animals, Cambridge
University Press ‘Pet-keeping….. is a subject encircled by
a great deal of prejudice and misunderstanding. The exact nature of these prejudices varies from person to person, but all of them essentially boil down to a vague notion that there is something strange, perverse or wasteful about displaying sentimental affection for animals’ (xiv).
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Pigs and pets Domestic livestock are exploited in the ‘most cost-
effective and efficient way’ ‘maximise productivity; minimise costs’.
Never mind that livestock suffer as a result – economically unavoidable because of need to feed mass populations.
‘There exists in our society an entirely separate category of domestic animals which, for no obvious reason, is exempt from this sort of treatment.’ Pets.
‘Instead of maximising productivity, mimimising costs, and turning a blind eye to the welfare of the animals involved, we do exactly the opposite. The economic benefits of pet owning are negligible at best. Yet the majority of pet-owners spare no expense to ensure that their animals are as happy, contented and secure as they possibly can be.’ (Serpell, 1996:17)
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Contradictory sets of moral values ‘Instead of questioning the hardline,
economic exploitation of animals we have tended, in one way or another, to adopt a disparaging, condescending or trivialising attitude to pets and pet keeping’ (Serpell, 1996:20)
Ambivalence towards pets has long history Witchcraft trials Inability to form appropriate relationships
with humans
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Human or animal?
Rebekah Fox Liminal position Human and animal – if human full
family members, if animal then disposable
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Power, domination and pets Franklin argues that human-animal
relations undergoing transformation Emergence of post-humanist
sensibility More empathetic attitudes towards
animals Pet keeping increased in response to
ontological insecurity Challenges human-animal boundary
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Power and domination
Yi-Fi Tuan (1984) Dominance and affection, Yale University Press
Human-pet relationship characterised by dominance and affection
Pet not only refers to animals but also to domestic servants, children, slaves, women, lower classes – all can be pets
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Dominance and affection ‘Dominance may be cruel and
exploitative, with no hint of affection in it. What it produces is the victim. On the other hand, dominance may be combined with affection, and what it produces is the pet’ (2).
‘Affection mitigates domination, making it softer and more acceptable, but affection itself is possibly only in relationships of inequality’ (5).
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Pets
They receive lavish care and attention
Exist for human pleasure and convenience
If become inconvenient they are got rid of
Goldfish (Japan), Dogs (Britain)
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Dogs ‘the dog is the pet par excellence. It
exhibits uniquely a set of relationships we wish to explore: dominance and affection, love and abuse, cruelty and kindness. The dog calls forth, on the one hand, the best in a human person is capable of – self-sacrificing devotion to a weaker and dependent being, and, on the other hand, the temptation to exercise power in a wilful and arbitrary, even perverse, manner. Both traits can exist in the same person.’ (102)
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Power Affection is flow of love from the strong to the
weak, from the superior to the inferior (162). In a relation of equality there’s a certain distance – the distance of respect.
‘a relationship of dominance – of superior to inferior – is not in doubt so long as the owners feel free to bend down to pat their dog or cat on the head or run their hand down its coat. These are gestures of affection. They are bestowed by the superior on the inferior and can never be used between equals’ (171).
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Animals as family
Research into families Joking and laughter – ambivalence Pets as substitutes for people
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Yorkie ‘We’ve had him two years now, he’s been the
baby see, because I wasn’t gonna have more children, and I don’t know how he’s gonna react when this baby comes. He was terrible with the budgie. [Interviewer to dog: You are gonna be jealous.] Yeah, because I did baby him quite a bit, but tried not to since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve tried to, not to distance myself but to, just tell him who is boss type of thing, so he started to realise he is a dog not a child. /laughs/ So we’ll see when the baby comes anyway.’
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Emotions
Support Bereavement Human capacities – agency,
‘minded social actors’, intentional Conflict and strain
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Summary Mass pet keeping a relatively recent
phenomenon – associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, shift from functional relationships with animals to relations of affect
Contradiction between emotional attachments to pets and the way industrial societies treat the vast majority of domesticated animals. Moral ambiguity. Challenges the species barrier.
Relations with pets are characterised by inequality – dominance and affection. They’re incorporated into families, where they’re loved and abused as are humans, especially those who are not in a position of power.
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