1. Neil McPherson Society & Human/Nonhuman Animal Relations (SOCY10015) Lecture 6: The nonhuman animal as pet and food “The relationship with pets is the closest and most humanized of human-animal relation, and the changing nature of pet keeping can be related to important social and cultural transformations in modernity” (Franklin 1999: 84) “Why do we call some [nonhuman animals] “pets” and others “dinner?” (K.D. Lang) Dr NEIL McPHERSON Email: neil.mcpherson@uws.ac.uk Twt:@neilgmcpherson SMS:07708 931 325
2. Neil McPherson Write down 2 words that describe the following animals in your view
3. Neil McPherson Write down 2 words that explain why you would not eat the following in normal circumstances
4. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Long history of domesticated animals/pets By 16th & 17th C pets established in ‘middle class’ households Urbanisation & rise in disposable income Animals less likely to be ‘functional necessities’ (see Thomas 1984)
5. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Spatial separation of urban society and nature Breakdown of anthropocentric split Rural urban split “In the old days, animals were treated differently because they were the same; now they are treated the same because they are different…Meanwhile the rural population carried on its old ways; it still had a direct, personal relationship with animals” (Tester 1990: 54)
6. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Spatial separation of urban society and nature Breakdown of anthropocentric split Rural urban split “In the old days, animals were treated differently because they were the same; now they are treated the same because they are different…Meanwhile the rural population carried on its old ways; it still had a direct, personal relationship with animals” (Tester 1990: 54)
7. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Changes in ontological security – (Sartre 1967, Thomas 1983, Franklin 1999) “Sterilised, isolated and usually deprived of contact with other animals, the pet is a creature of it’s [sic] owner’s way of life; and the fact that so many people feel it necessary to maintain a dependent animal for the sake of emotional completeness tells us something about the atomistic world in which we live” (Thomas 1983: 1192001: 66)
8. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Breakdown of stability, of cohesion, of social certainty, of the family unit “Here are the conditions that favouring the elaboration of our ties with pets: while all around changes and ‘all that is solid melts into air’. Pets provide a somewhat nostalgic set of old-fashion comforts” (Sabloff 2001: 66)
9. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Growing urban separation Middle classes separated from the animality of rural life Extending the social – the naming of pets “Pets could be safely named in a way that made them extensions of the social. Humans could become closer to their pets exactly because they were so far removed from them.” (Tester 1990: 53)
10. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Individualisation and subjectivity “To name an animal is to accord it subjectivity and a relationship with oneself” (Sabloff 2001: 66) “The act of naming implies that these animals are going to be given special treatment and that individual attributes or personalities are likely to be claimed for them” (Beck & Katcher 1996: 13)
11. Neil McPherson Pets/companion animals Rise in Western society since 1960s Emphasis on companionship not entertainment Attitudes to pets influenced by life cycle More sophisticated care for pets Markets (See Franklin 1999: 89)
12. Neil McPherson Pet population in UK Pets – 24m Dogs – 8m Cats – 8m Rabbits – 1m Guinea pigs 700,000 Mice – 100,000 47% of households Top ten Fish Dogs Cats Rabbits Birds Domestic Fowl Guinea Pigs Hamsters Horses/Ponies Frogs/Toads Source: Pet Food Manufacturers Association 2010 – click or scan
13. Neil McPherson The moral orthodoxy Pets share social space Pets are individualised through naming Pets are edible but not eaten
14. Neil McPherson Pets or meat? Pet/meat dualism ““Meat” animals and humanized non-meat animals…are treated as belonging to radically separate and polarized categories of privilege.” (Jaggar & Young 1999: 220)
17. Neil McPherson Pets or meat? Cultural relativism “most Americans cannot understand why some Koreans eat dog meat, most Koreans are equally appalled that Americans often let dogs live in their homes, allow them to lick their faces, and spend so much money on them.” (Ferrante 2010: 78)
18. Neil McPherson Stop & think: At the intersection of ‘race’ and species “If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade – animals skinned alive – then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.” (Morrissey 2010)
19. Neil McPherson Stop & think: At the intersection of ‘race’ and species “My nausea…worsens as I imagine the phalanx of white, hipster, petite-bourgeois animal rights activists carrying around fake blood stained placards baring the colors or likeness of the South Korean flag.” (‘Vegans of Colour’ blog 2010 - here)
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21. Neil McPherson Resolving the dualism Schema – separate food and non-food animals Golden retriever (stimulus) inedible animal (belief/perception) image of living (thought) disgust (feeling) refusal or reluctance to eat (action) Belief and action cyclical – mutually reinforcing (Joy 2001: 15-16)
22. Neil McPherson The nonhuman animal as meat Commercialization – animal husbandry to animal industry Domestication of pack animals Dominance submission system (see Carlson 2001) Not all pack animals have been domesticated Those that have, bred to enhance attributes (see Wilkie 2010 – here)
23. Neil McPherson Factory farming Mid 20th C End of rationing Rising population Increased consumer wealth Technological development
24. Neil McPherson Factory farming – structural change in farming practice Increased farm size Changes in production technologies Increased enterprise specialization Tighter vertical coordination between the stages of production Economic Research Service/USDA 2009 - here
25. Neil McPherson Factory farming – structural change in farming practice Animals moved from field to shed, crate & cage Mechanised cleaning, watering and feeding Mechanised slaughter and butchering
26. Neil McPherson Factory farming – structural change in farming practice Increased yield Cheaper, accessible product Increased land efficiencies Harnessing of by products
27. Neil McPherson McDonaldisation (Ritzer) Rationalisation of food production and consumption Efficiency Predictability Calculability Control
28. Neil McPherson Effects of rationalisation of food production Separation of food animal from nature The factory farmed animal as simulacra The animal machine Economic reductionism - input costs profit:
29. Neil McPherson Concerns relating to factory farming Animal welfare Environmental Human health Animal health Social responsibility and sustainability
30. Neil McPherson Animals slaughtered for meat in abattoirs in UK Animals slaughtered in UK in 1973 & 2009 – thousands (Source DEFRA)
33. Neil McPherson Chickens killed for meat Chicken broilers in UK – Jan 2011 – 75.51 million Chicken broilers in US – 2010 (total) – 8.8 billion Source - Defra & USDA
35. Neil McPherson The ethical position Welfare Singer against all factory farming Welfare groups – small steps in beneficial treatment Veal Rights Abolitionist
36. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective Historical ties between women and animals Suffrage - shared oppression by males Mary Tealby – the Battersea Dogs’ Home (1860) Frances Cobbe – British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) (1989) Emily Davison and the 'Suffragette Derby' of 1913 - here
37. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective Carol Adams – The Sexual Politics of Meat – here ‘Cultural worker’ The concept of ‘absent referent’
38. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective “Behind every meal is an absence: the death of the animal whose place the meat takes. The “absent referent” is that which separates the meat eater from the animal and the animal from the end product… (Adams 2006: 14)
39. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective “…Once the existence of meat is disconnected from the existence of an animal who was killed to become that meat, meat becomes unanchored by its original referrent (the animal), becoming instead a free-floating image, used often to reflect women’s status as well as animals’.” (Adams 2006: 14)
40. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective Patriarchal culture = objectification fragmentation and consumption of nonhuman animals and women “Meat’s recognizable message includes association with the male role; its meaning recurs within a fixed gender system; the coherence it achieves as a meaningful item of food arises from patriarchal attitudes including the idea that the end justifies the means, that the objectification of other beings is a necessary part of life, and that violence can and should be masked.” (Adams 2006: 24)
41. Neil McPherson Meat: a feminist perspective Female nonhuman animals are absent referents in meat & dairy consumption ‘Animalisation’ of human females / sexualisation of nonhuman animals Feminist care ethic can break down patriarchal structures that oppress human females and nonhuman animal (see Adams 2006)
51. Neil McPherson The concept of ‘carnism’ Meat is Life v Meat is Death Carnism v Veganism The ‘meat eater and the invisibility of carnism (see Joy 2010 – here)
52. Neil McPherson Escaping the pet/meat dualism - last word to Plumwood “The specific form of pet-meat dualism characteristic of factory farming is the collaborative product of the public-private dualism of liberalism (with its confinement of care to the zone of personal relationships), the neo-liberal rationality of self-maximising egoism expressed in maximizing economic relationships based on dualized conceptions of reason in opposition to emotions and ethics, and the ideology of human supremicism expressed in the dualism of person-property.” (Plumwood 1999: 207 - here)
![Neil McPherson Society & Human/Nonhuman Animal Relations (SOCY10015) Lecture 6: The nonhuman animal as pet and food “The relationship with pets is the closest and most humanized of human-animal relation, and the changing nature of pet keeping can be related to important social and cultural transformations in modernity” (Franklin 1999: 84) “Why do we call some [nonhuman animals] “pets” and others “dinner?” (K.D. Lang) Dr NEIL McPHERSON Email: neil.mcpherson@uws.ac.uk Twt:@neilgmcpherson SMS:07708 931 325](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/sahnharlecture6-110322173150-phpapp01/85/sahnhar-lecture-6-1-320.jpg)
