Understanding the relationships between humans and animals is essential to a full understanding of both our present and our shared past. Across the humanities and social sciences, researchers have ...embraced the ‘animal turn,’ a multispecies approach to scholarship, with historians at the forefront of new research in human-animal studies that blends traditional research methods with interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks that decenter humans in historical narratives. These exciting approaches come with core methodological challenges for scholars seeking to better understand the past from non-anthropocentric perspectives. Whether in a large public archive, a small private collection, or the oral histories of living memories, stories of animals are mediated by the humans who have inscribed the records and organized archival collections. In oral histories, the place of animals in the past are further refracted by the frailty of human memory and recollection. Only traces remain for researchers to read and interpret. Bringing together seventeen original essays by a leading group of international scholars, Traces of the Animal Past showcases the innovative methods historians use to unearth and explain how animals fit into our collective histories. Situating the historian within the narrative, bringing transparency to methodological processes, and reflecting on the processes and procedures of current research, this book presents new approaches and new directions for a maturing field of historical inquiry.
This book provides an in-depth investigation into the practices of animal housing systems with international contributions from across the humanities and social sciences. By attending to a range of ...different sites such as the zoo, the laboratory, the farm and the animal shelter, to name a few, the book explores material technologies from the perspective that these are integrated parts of a larger biopolitical infrastructure and questions how animal housing systems, and the physical infrastructures that surround central human-animal practices, come into being.
A collaboration between an attorney and an animal protection advocate, this work utilizes the extremely controversial and high-profile “crush video” case, US v. Stevens, to explore how American ...society attempts to balance the protection of free speech and the prevention of animal cruelty. Starting from the detailed case study of a single prominent ruling, the authors provide a masterful survey of important issues facing society in the area of animal welfare. The Stevens case included various “hot topic” elements connected to the role of government as arbiter of public morality, including judicial attitudes to sexual deviance and dogfighting.
The concept of animal resistance is now reaching a wide audience
across the social media landscape. Animal Resistance in the
Global Capitalist Era offers an overview of how animals resist
human ...orderings in the context of capitalism, domestication, and
colonization. Exploring this understudied phenomenon, this book is
attentive to both the standpoints of animal resisters and the ways
they are represented in human society. Together, these lenses
provide insight into how animals' resistance disrupts the dominant
paradigm of human exceptionalism and the distancing strategies of
enterprises that exploit animals for profit. Animals have been
relegated to the margins by human spatial and ideological
orderings, but they are also the subjects of their own struggle,
located at the center of their liberation movement. Well-researched
and accessible, with over fifty images that aid in understanding
both the experiences of and responses to animals who resist,
Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era is an
important contribution to scholarship on animals and society. The
text will appeal to a broad audience interested in the
relationships between humans and the other animals with whom we
share this planet.
This book presents cross-discipline studies covering aspects ranging from animal science to social/consumer sciences and psychology, with the aim to collect and disseminate information promoting the ...continuous enhancement of animal welfare by improving stakeholders’ perception of animal welfare. Although animal welfare is about how the animals perceive the surrounding environment, the actual welfare of the animals is dependent on how the stakeholders perceive and weigh animal welfare. The stakeholders can, either directly (i.e., through stock-people interaction with the animals) or indirectly (e.g., when retailers and consumers are willing to pay more for high welfare animal-based products), affect the way animals are kept and handled.
Throughout their lives, animals must complete many tasks, from finding food, avoiding predators, and attracting mates to navigating through the environment. To do so, they must gather and use a range ...of information from the world around them and from other individuals. For this, animals have evolved a staggering diversity of sensory organs that are both fundamental to survival and reproduction and shape much of evolution and behaviour. Sensory ecology deals with how animals acquire, process, and use information in behaviour and many other aspects of their lives, and the importance of this in evolution. This book is an introduction to sensory ecology, covering the various sensory modalities across all taxonomic groups. Rather than treating each sensory modality separately, they are discussed together from a behavioural and evolutionary approach with the aim of illustrating key principles and differences across modalities and taxonomic groups. Not only does sensory ecology deal with how the senses work and their use in behaviour, but recent work has also dealt more with the role of sensory systems in evolutionary change, as well as new developments in molecular biology and phylogenetics. The book begins with an introduction to the concepts of information and behaviour, followed by a discussion of the sensory systems that exist, how they work, and features of nerve cells and circuits. It then discusses key issues in communication, and the role of sensory systems and information in larger scale evolutionary processes, such as coevolution and speciation. Throughout the book, examples are given from various modalities and taxonomic groups, relating to diverse areas ranging from anti-predator strategies, foraging, and mate choice to navigation.
This open-access book empowers its readers to explore the acoustic world of animals. By listening to the sounds of nature, we can study animal behavior, distribution, and demographics; their habitat ...characteristics and needs; and the effects of noise. Sound recording is an efficient and affordable tool, independent of daylight and weather; and recorders may be left in place for many months at a time, continuously collecting data on animals and their environment. This book builds the skills and knowledge necessary to collect and interpret acoustic data from terrestrial and marine environments. Beginning with a history of sound recording, the chapters provide an overview of off-the-shelf recording equipment and analysis tools (including automated signal detectors and statistical methods); audiometric methods; acoustic terminology, quantities, and units; sound propagation in air and under water; soundscapes of terrestrial and marine habitats; animal acoustic and vibrational communication; echolocation; and the effects of noise. This book will be useful to students and researchers of animal ecology who wish to add acoustics to their toolbox, as well as to environmental managers in industry and government.
What kinds of moral challenges arise from encounters between species in laboratory science?Animal Ethosdraws on ethnographic engagement with academic labs in which experimental research involving ...nonhuman species provokes difficult questions involving life and death, scientific progress, and other competing quandaries. Whereas much has been written on core bioethical values that inform regulated behavior in labs, Lesley A. Sharp reveals the importance of attending to lab personnel's quotidian and unscripted responses to animals.Animal Ethosexposes the rich-yet poorly understood-moral dimensions of daily lab life, where serendipitous, creative, and unorthodox responses are evidence of concerted efforts by researchers, animal technicians, veterinarians, and animal activists to transform animal laboratories into moral scientific worlds.
If a laboratory animal survives an experiment without lasting compromised welfare, its future must be negotiated. Rehoming may be a consideration. This paper reports on research findings that provide ...an indication of the uptake of animal rehoming by UK facilities and the associated moral, ethical, practical and regulatory considerations that inform decisions to rehome or not. This research addresses a widely acknowledged gap in the literature to understand both the numbers, and types of animals rehomed from UK research facilities, as well as the main motivations for engaging in the practice, and the barriers for those facilities not currently rehoming. From the ~160 UK research facilities in the UK, 41 facilities completed the questionnaire, giving a response rate of approximately 25%. Results suggest rehoming occurs routinely, yet the numbers are small; just 2322 animals are known to have been rehomed between 2015-2017. At least 1 in 10 facilities are rehoming. There exists a clear preference for the rehoming of some species (mainly cats, dogs and horses) over others (rodents, agricultural animals and primates). Indeed, although 94.15% of species kept in laboratories are rodents, they make up under a fifth (19.14%) of all animals known to be rehomed between 2015-2017. The primary motivation for rehoming is to boost staff morale and promote a positive ethical profile for the facility. Barriers include concern for the animal's welfare following rehoming, high scientific demand for animals that leaves few to be rehomed, and, finally, certain animals (mainly those genetically modified) are simply unsuited to rehoming. The findings of this research will support facilities choosing to rehome, as well as those that are not currently engaging in the practice. By promoting the practice, the benefits to rehoming in terms of improving laboratory animal's quality of life, helping facility staff to overcome the moral stress of killing, and addressing public concern regarding the fate of laboratory animals, can be attained. It is only once an understanding of rehoming from the perspective of UK research facilities has been ascertained, that appropriate policy and support can be provided.
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