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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

‘Let’S Find Out! What Do I Make?’ [Review] Kathryn Gillespie, The Cow With Ear Tag #1389. University Of Chicago Press, 2018. 272pp, Hayley Singer Jan 2019

‘Let’S Find Out! What Do I Make?’ [Review] Kathryn Gillespie, The Cow With Ear Tag #1389. University Of Chicago Press, 2018. 272pp, Hayley Singer

Animal Studies Journal

I’m halfway through Kathryn Gillespie’s book when it hits me. This enormous shadow lake of sadness I’ve been walking around with – it’s dairy. It’s the electric prods that move cows through pens. It’s the endless stream of bovine bodies flowing around the world. It’s the ginormous global wet market of milk and semen. It’s the aftermath of shotgun blasts delivered to immobile cows, to fugitive cows, still ringing in my ears. It’s the call of mothers and children separated at auction yards. It’s that we’re living in a context of (almost) compulsory dairy consumption. It’s that writing about the …


[Review] Michael Lundblad, Editor, Animalities: Literary And Cultural Studies Beyond The Human. Edinburgh University Press, 2017. 249pp, Wendy Woodward Jan 2019

[Review] Michael Lundblad, Editor, Animalities: Literary And Cultural Studies Beyond The Human. Edinburgh University Press, 2017. 249pp, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

Lundblad’s introduction defines and separates human-animal studies, animality studies and posthumanism. While there are perhaps more cross-overs than Lundblad suggests, the introduction provides a lucid discussion of these fields, sub-fields and their provenance. In addition, each essay in Animalities locates its analysis in relation to these categorizations. Cary Wolfe’s essay on ‘The Poetics of Extinction’ considers the case of Martha, an individual, named passenger pigeon who was the last of her species, partly via Michael Pestel’s installation which memorialises her and seems to offer some hope that she might live again. Neel Ahuja continues with the spectre of extinction and …


Many Happy Returns: Eradication, Re-Wilding And The Case Of Lord Howe Island, Helen Tiffin Jan 2019

Many Happy Returns: Eradication, Re-Wilding And The Case Of Lord Howe Island, Helen Tiffin

Animal Studies Journal

Colonialist concepts continue to drive Parks and Wildlife/ Conservation Department policies and practices in Australia and other settler colonies. In the case of Australia, returning the country to its pre- European invasion (pristine) condition becomes policy dictate, even where the often draconian implementations of these parameters prove unsuitable or even dangerous. And the notion of restoring Australian ecosystems to their pre-1788 condition is closely linked to the fetishisation of species purity. Australia has one of the world's highest extinction rates, and conservation of what remains is obviously of paramount importance. But the emphasis on eradication of so-called ‘pest’ species can …


Animal Studies Journal 2019 8 (2): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Editorial And Contributor Biographies, Melissa Boyde Jan 2019

Animal Studies Journal 2019 8 (2): Cover Page, Table Of Contents, Editorial And Contributor Biographies, Melissa Boyde

Animal Studies Journal

Animal Studies Journal 2019 8 (1): Cover Page, Table of Contents, Editorial and Notes on Contributors.


Introduction: New Directions In Animal Advocacy, Dinesh Wadiwel, Peter Chen Jan 2019

Introduction: New Directions In Animal Advocacy, Dinesh Wadiwel, Peter Chen

Animal Studies Journal

The ‘political turn’ in animal studies (see Milligan, Boyer et al.; Garner and O’Sullivan; Cavalieri ‘Animal Liberation: A Political Perspective’) has offered some unique trajectories for realising improvements for animals. Where traditional animal ethics was dominated by a focus on normative concerns for how humans should act with respect to animals, the recent movement towards politics has effected a shift in favour of thinking about how human-animal relations are shaped by institutions, political structures and actors, the role of the state and private governance, power relations and problems of strategy. At least one benefit of this analysis is that it …


Provocations From The Field: Animals And The War On Drugs, C. Lou Hamilton Jan 2019

Provocations From The Field: Animals And The War On Drugs, C. Lou Hamilton

Animal Studies Journal

The international war on drugs has been roundly criticised by drug reformers as economically costly, ineffective and catastrophic for human rights and communities. This essay reflects on some of the interconnections between the war on drugs’ attacks on vulnerable people and environments, and the vulnerability of other species. I argue that ending the war on drugs is an animal justice issue due to the direct and indirect (but not unforeseeable) impacts of ‘narco’ economics and militarised responses to the production and distribution of illegal drugs.


On The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Alliance Politics For Animal Liberation: A Response To Paola Cavalieri, Matthew Calarco Jan 2019

On The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Alliance Politics For Animal Liberation: A Response To Paola Cavalieri, Matthew Calarco

Animal Studies Journal

Paola Cavalieri’s article provides an incisive account of the current state of affairs in pro-animal discourse and activism. Taking her bearings from a radical pro-animal commitment to interspecies egalitarianism, Cavalieri expertly describes the shift that has taken place over the past decade from a focus on an ethics of personal purity to a politics of structural change. She correctly underscores the point that an individualistic ethic that prioritizes changes in personal consumption is ultimately unable to effect the kinds of widespread institutional change necessary to address and ameliorate the currently intolerable situation faced by billions of domesticated and wild animals. …


Disturbing Animals In A Christian Perspective: Re/Considering Sacrifice, Incarnation And Divine Animality, Nekeisha Alayna Alexis Jan 2019

Disturbing Animals In A Christian Perspective: Re/Considering Sacrifice, Incarnation And Divine Animality, Nekeisha Alayna Alexis

Animal Studies Journal

What does Christianity say about other animals? For many people, Jesus-followers and others alike, this is a settled question. The tradition’s long and ongoing history of justifying, participating in and even encouraging indiscriminate violence against other animals makes it one of, if not the most, anti-animal religions. But is it the case that Christianity has little to no intrinsic resources to denounce and dismantle systemic and individual cruelty toward other creatures? Is a biblically grounded approach to other animals’ self-determination and thriving really a lost cause? This essay argues from an Anabaptist/Mennonite theological orientation influenced by various anti-oppression politics that …


Pain And Emotion In Fishes – Fish Welfare Implications For Fisheries And Aquaculture, Culum Brown, Catherine Dorey Jan 2019

Pain And Emotion In Fishes – Fish Welfare Implications For Fisheries And Aquaculture, Culum Brown, Catherine Dorey

Animal Studies Journal

Scientists have built a significant body of research that shows that fishes display all the features commonly associated with intelligence in mammals, and that they experience stress, fear and pain. These findings have significant ramifications for animal welfare legislation, an area from which fishes have been traditionally excluded. Our most detrimental interaction with fishes is through commercial fisheries and aquaculture, an industry that feeds billions of humans and employs millions more. We have invented a vast array of fishing methods that extract fishes from almost every region on the planet in an equally vast range of violent and painful ways. …


The Fate Of The Illegible Animal: The Case Of The Australian Wild Donkey, Danielle Celermajer, Arian Wallach Jan 2019

The Fate Of The Illegible Animal: The Case Of The Australian Wild Donkey, Danielle Celermajer, Arian Wallach

Animal Studies Journal

The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the threads of economic inter-dependence, cultural and religious significance, militarism, friendship, ideas about and programs of conservation, and traditional Chinese medicine turned into a global industry. In this paper, we discuss four eras of entanglement of wild donkeys in Australia. During the first, now past, domesticated donkeys were exploited workers in the colonial project. In the second, present era, most Australian donkeys are unwanted wild animals, declared wildlife pests subject to mass eradication for conservation and livestock production. In the third emerging era donkeys are positioned …


[Review] Vicki Hutton, A Reason To Live: Hiv And Animal Companions. Purdue University Press, 2019. 257pp, Wendy Woodward Jan 2019

[Review] Vicki Hutton, A Reason To Live: Hiv And Animal Companions. Purdue University Press, 2019. 257pp, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

In 2012, Vicki Hutton interviewed eleven men in Australia who had contracted HIV. The interviews focused on the healing effects of living with ‘companion animals’, some of whom attended the interviews. Hutton illustrates repeatedly how these animals embodied a reason for HIV survivors to live in spite of the repercussions of the disease they suffered – stigma, social alienation and often traumatic treatments. Caring for an animal inspired the human to choose life over succumbing to death. Statistics can only overwhelm but meeting these men and their animals personalises the tragedies of contracting HIV – particularly for those who became …


[Review] Dan Wylie, Death And Compassion: The Elephant In Southern African Literature, Wits University Press, 2018. Ix + 267, John Simons Jan 2019

[Review] Dan Wylie, Death And Compassion: The Elephant In Southern African Literature, Wits University Press, 2018. Ix + 267, John Simons

Animal Studies Journal

Thirty-seven years ago, I was doing what many young university lecturers did at the time: supplementing my income by moonlighting during the summer vacation. The work in this case was a contract from the British Council to run creative writing workshops for trainee teachers in various colleges around the recently minted but already unhappy state of Zimbabwe. In one of these places there was a waterhole not far from where I was staying and I was able to wander out during the brief African twilight, before the swift onset of a night so dark it was actually impossible to see …


[Review] Joshua Lobb, The Flight Of Birds. Sydney University Press, 2019. 322pp, Alex Lockwood Jan 2019

[Review] Joshua Lobb, The Flight Of Birds. Sydney University Press, 2019. 322pp, Alex Lockwood

Animal Studies Journal

Why, one could ask, does such a high proportion of the very best works of recently published literary and creative prose, which choose to engage with climate change, environmental shock, biodiversity crises, and extinction risks – the existential threats we face as a global multispecies population – all tell stories with and of nonhuman animals? My theory, one shared by Amitav Ghosh in The Great Derangement (although with differing conclusions) is that the very nature of the threats we face is a reckoning with our alienation from the nonhuman world. It is a reckoning we need to have, without ‘hiding’ …


A Spira Inspired Approach To Animal Protection Advocacy For Rabbits In The Australian Meat Industry, Reem Lascelles, Alexandra Mcewan Jan 2019

A Spira Inspired Approach To Animal Protection Advocacy For Rabbits In The Australian Meat Industry, Reem Lascelles, Alexandra Mcewan

Animal Studies Journal

This paper explores the relevance of Henry Spira’s approach to the animal protection advocacy in the context of Australian rabbit meat farms. The Australian rabbit meat industry is a relatively unexplored area of animal protection scholarship. Of particular significance is the fact that, in contrast to the move towards ‘free range’ for other domestic species used for meat, there is no such thing, nor it seems will there ever be, ‘free range’ domestic rabbit meat. The status of ‘the rabbit’ as a pest species in Australia means that, in the domestic realm at least, the rabbit faces existence in a …


Towards Multispecies Solidarity: Individual Stories Of Learning To Consume Ethically, Elisabeth Valiente-Riedl Jan 2019

Towards Multispecies Solidarity: Individual Stories Of Learning To Consume Ethically, Elisabeth Valiente-Riedl

Animal Studies Journal

This research problematises the translation of economic agency into political agency through ethical consumption. Employing narrative enquiry, the experiences and perceptions of three young women are documented and analysed. This permits a grounded examination of the advocacy and consumption nexus, including participants relative prioritisation of (competing) ethical values and practices relative to traditional consumption concerns. A key finding is that prioritisation of wellbeing, comprising that of humans, animals and other forms of life, requires a rearticulation of the traditional concept of ‘political solidarity’ to a more multifaceted conception of ‘multispecies solidarity’. Moreover, conception of self and of solidarity through consumption …


[Review] David Brooks, The Grass Library. Brandl And Scheslinger, 2019. 223pp, Wendy Woodward Jan 2019

[Review] David Brooks, The Grass Library. Brandl And Scheslinger, 2019. 223pp, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

The Grass Library constitutes its own genre – a memoir of embodied humans and animals who write themselves not quite equally into the text – the nonhuman takes precedence. On the cover, fittingly, the human is an absence although there is evidence in the background, full bookshelves and a water bowl lovingly placed on a window shelf. In the foreground is one of the principal subjects, an assertive presence who gazes directly at the viewer with sheep-openness and beauty. Brooks mentions an antiquarian library elsewhere that had been subjected to ‘the scrutiny of grass’ (65). This book too has been …


How Shall We Live Together? A Response To Paola Cavalieri, Sue Donaldson Jan 2019

How Shall We Live Together? A Response To Paola Cavalieri, Sue Donaldson

Animal Studies Journal

Paola Cavalieri asks whether the animal rights/liberation (AR/L) movement should be ‘selfsufficient and self-reliant’,2 and develop ‘an autonomous presence both in the political arena and in the electoral process’3 rather than focusing on alliance building with the broader Left. Cavalieri’s hesitation about alliance-building is motivated by worries about diffusion and loss of focus, but also by the thought that ‘humanism leads the worse-off to cling to their humanity to the detriment of animals’. Thus, acting ‘as a full member of the family of social justice struggles’ will lead either to wasting energy on alliances that never materialize, or to watering …


Provocations From The Field - Derangement And Resistance: Reflections From Under The Glare Of An Angry Emu, Pattrice Jones Jan 2019

Provocations From The Field - Derangement And Resistance: Reflections From Under The Glare Of An Angry Emu, Pattrice Jones

Animal Studies Journal

The situations of emus may illuminate the maladies of human societies. From the colonialism that led Europeans to tamper with Australian ecosystems through the militarism that mandated the Great Emu War of 1932 to the consumer capitalism that sparked a global market for ‘exotic’ emus and their products, habits of belief and behaviour that hurt humans have wreaked havoc on emus. Literally de-ranged, emus abroad today endure all of the estrangements of émigrés in addition to the frustrations and sorrows of captivity. In Australia, free emus struggle to survive as climate change parches already diminished and polluted habitats. We have …


Kaimangatanga: Maori Perspectives On Veganism And Plant-Based Kai, Kirsty Dunn Jan 2019

Kaimangatanga: Maori Perspectives On Veganism And Plant-Based Kai, Kirsty Dunn

Animal Studies Journal

In this paper – drawing from a range of food blogs and social media pages – I consider both the ways in which Māori writers discuss some of the barriers and cultural conflicts experienced within the realm of vegan ethics, as well as their perspectives on various facets of Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) such as kaitiakitanga (guardianship), hauora (holistic health and wellbeing), and rangatiratanga (sovereignty) which have influenced their attitudes and approaches towards veganism and plant-based diets. I argue that these diverse perspectives provide a valuable means of analysing and critiquing both the dominant ethics and attitudes which …


[Review] Lesley A. Sharp, Animal Ethos: The Morality Of Human-Animal Encounters In Experimental Lab Science. University Of California Press, 2018. 312pp, Denise Russell Jan 2019

[Review] Lesley A. Sharp, Animal Ethos: The Morality Of Human-Animal Encounters In Experimental Lab Science. University Of California Press, 2018. 312pp, Denise Russell

Animal Studies Journal

Animal Ethos. What is that? This heading on its own is a puzzle. Taken together with the subheading and reading the book it seems that ‘Animal Ethos’ means the customary way of interacting with animals in lab settings. The sub-heading led me to believe that the book would be not just about the ethos in the sense just described but about what is right and what is wrong in the human-animal encounters in animal experiments. Lesley Sharp coming from the discipline of anthropology shies away from making such judgements with some very rare exceptions, for example, when describing the abhorrent …


Animal Victims Of Domestic And Family Violence: Raising Youth Awareness, Lyla Coorey, Carl Coorey-Ewings Jan 2018

Animal Victims Of Domestic And Family Violence: Raising Youth Awareness, Lyla Coorey, Carl Coorey-Ewings

Animal Studies Journal

In the last two decades, there has been a growing interest in connections between animal abuse and intra-familial violence. Research from the United States (US) has promoted awareness around this connection, and the implications, including for household companion and other animals, when identifying, assessing risk and responding to domestic and family violence (DFV). Compared with the US, United Kingdom (UK), New Zealand (NZ) and Canada, Australia’s inclusion of animals in its DFV services’ responses is minimal. Furthermore, a preventive perspective to minimise adult abuse of both humans and their animals, that highlights animal abuse in domestic violence school awareness programs, …


Alexis Wright’S Literary Testimony To Intersecting Traumas, Meera Atkinson Jan 2018

Alexis Wright’S Literary Testimony To Intersecting Traumas, Meera Atkinson

Animal Studies Journal

This article proffers a reading of Alexis Wright’s The Swan Book (2013), hailed as ‘the first truly planetary novel’ (Gleeson-White), arguing that Wright’s poetics of transgenerational trauma witnesses to intersected trans-species injustices and traumas. Exploring the way Wright testifies to entanglements of human-nonhuman trauma, I challenge entrenched humanist and speciesist preoccupations in trauma theory to address trauma transmissions with particular focus on trauma as a social and political force generated by patriarchal imperialism. In doing so, I show how Wright’s fiction serves as a form of advocacy for nonhuman sentient beings.


Peta, Patriarchy And Intersectionality, Nick P. Pendergrast Jan 2018

Peta, Patriarchy And Intersectionality, Nick P. Pendergrast

Animal Studies Journal

This article explores one of the key issues of debate within the contemporary animal advocacy movement: whether the movement should focus only on animal-related issues or take an intersectional approach, which includes engagement with other social justice issues. This intersectional perspective, highlighting similarities between different forms of oppression and their interlinked nature, is advocated for in Critical Animal Studies and ecofeminist literature. Scholars in these related areas have extended the concept to include nonhuman animals. This theory has an academic background but can also be useful to guide activism, including animal advocacy. The question of whether animal advocates adopt an …


Why Is It Important To Use Flagship Species In Community Education? The Koala As A Case Study, Rolf Schlagloth, Flavia Santamaria, Barry Golding, Hedley Thomson Jan 2018

Why Is It Important To Use Flagship Species In Community Education? The Koala As A Case Study, Rolf Schlagloth, Flavia Santamaria, Barry Golding, Hedley Thomson

Animal Studies Journal

Our paper investigates the conservation and planning implications of the use of an individual flagship species. The koala was chosen, as an example, in a community education intervention in a regional Australian city. Educating the community to accept changes in planning laws aimed at the protection of a single species such as the koala has never been an easy task. We examine the approach used to educate the Ballarat community in doing just that. We outline the power of this iconic Australian mammal, the koala, in promoting conservation and changes in planning regulations. We highlight the flow-on conservation and educational …


Should We Eat Our Research Subjects? Advocacy And Animal Studies, Yvette M. Watt, Siobhan O'Sullivan, Fiona Probyn-Rapsey Jan 2018

Should We Eat Our Research Subjects? Advocacy And Animal Studies, Yvette M. Watt, Siobhan O'Sullivan, Fiona Probyn-Rapsey

Animal Studies Journal

This paper examines data from a survey of Animal Studies scholars undertaken by the authors in 2015. While the survey was broad ranging, this paper focuses on three interconnected elements; the respondents’ opinions on what role they think the field should play in regard to animal advocacy, their personal commitment to animal advocacy, and how their attitudes toward advocacy in the field differ depending on their dietary habits. While the vast majority of respondents believe that the field should demonstrate a commitment to animal wellbeing, our findings suggest that respondents’ level of commitment to animal advocacy is informed by whether …


[Review] A Transnational History Of The Australian Animal Movement, 1970-2015 Gonzalo Villanueva, A Transnational History Of The Australian Animal Movement, 1970-2015, Christine Townend Jan 2018

[Review] A Transnational History Of The Australian Animal Movement, 1970-2015 Gonzalo Villanueva, A Transnational History Of The Australian Animal Movement, 1970-2015, Christine Townend

Animal Studies Journal

This is a book that every student of politics would enjoy reading, and indeed should read, together with every person who wishes to become an activist (not necessarily an animal activist). This is because the book discusses, in a very interesting and exacting analysis, different strategies used to achieve a goal; in this case, the liberation of animals from the bonds of torture, deprivation and cruelty. Gonzalo Villanueva clearly has compassion for animals, but he is careful to keep an academic distance in this thoroughly researched, scholarly book, which is nevertheless easy to read. After each chapter of the book …


[Review] Stray: Human-Animal Ethics In The Anthropocene Barbara Creed, Stray: Human-Animal Ethics In The Anthropocene, Siobhan O'Sullivan Jan 2018

[Review] Stray: Human-Animal Ethics In The Anthropocene Barbara Creed, Stray: Human-Animal Ethics In The Anthropocene, Siobhan O'Sullivan

Animal Studies Journal

Barbara Creed is well known for her contribution to the field of Film Studies, as well as feminist thought more generally. Books such as The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (1993, Routledge) and Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny (2005, University of Melbourne Press) established Creed as a leading international thinker. They also attest to Creed’s willingness to push boundaries and to take on challenging and controversial topics. In recent years Creed has turned her attention to the lives of nonhuman animals, and the multitude of ways in which humans engage with, oppress, and may learn from their nonhuman …


Provocations From The Field: Female Reproductive Exploitation Comes Home, Carol J. Adams Jan 2018

Provocations From The Field: Female Reproductive Exploitation Comes Home, Carol J. Adams

Animal Studies Journal

Sexual violation and reproductive exploitation happen to vulnerable bodies. After studying systems of female reproductive servitude and visiting ‘parlors’, exhibitions, and auctions where females are sold into captivity, Dr. Kathryn Gillespie of the University of Washington found relentless ‘sexually violent commodification of the female body’. Meet Carly (not her real name). Carly was torn from her mother shortly after birth, and while her umbilical cord hung from her, was auctioned off. She lived a life of physical and social isolation until her captors felt she was sexually mature. She was immobilized by chains or with a specially designed containment device, …


Bloodlines – Mammalian Motherhood, Biotechnologies And Other Entanglements, Lynn Mowson Jan 2018

Bloodlines – Mammalian Motherhood, Biotechnologies And Other Entanglements, Lynn Mowson

Animal Studies Journal

This paper outlines my current sculptural research project bloodlines focusing on the ways in which dairy cows are entangled with multiple biotechnologies and the wider environment. bloodlines brings extant works such as fleshlumps, boobscape and slink, together with new works, to represent the dairy industry, the environmental impacts of animal agriculture and the biotech innovations of in-vitro meat and bio-fabricated leather. These works are linked together by a web of interconnected fluids: excreta, milk and blood. In this new work, I hope to make the links between the dairy industry and these extended concerns both visceral and visible.


Animals And Humans On Stage: Live Performances At Sea World On The Gold Coast, Rebecca Scollen Jan 2018

Animals And Humans On Stage: Live Performances At Sea World On The Gold Coast, Rebecca Scollen

Animal Studies Journal

The purpose of this study is to investigate animal and human relations as constructed, and as demonstrated, through the live performances at Sea World on the Gold Coast, Australia. Particular attention is placed upon the meanings generated by the intersection of the starring animals and humans in the two narrative-driven productions. The study employs participant observation at three performances of Fish Detectives and Affinity. Fish Detectives highlights the dangers of overfishing the Earth’s oceans in a play where the sea lions and pelican involved in the show perform alongside human actors. The animals do not perform their species but instead …