Animals, Society and Culture Lecture 18 Understanding the social and cultural positioning of animals

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

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