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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Animals & society
Nature conservation in southern Africa has always been
characterised by an interplay between Capital, specific
understandings of Morality, and forms of Militarism, that are all
dependent upon the shared subservience and marginalization of
animals and certain groups of people in society. Although the
subjectivity of people has been rendered visible in earlier
publications on histories of conservation in southern Africa, the
subjectivity of animals is hardly ever seriously considered or
explicitly dealt with. In this edited volume the subjectivity and
sentience of animals is explicitly included. The contributors argue
that the shared human and animal marginalisation and agency in
nature conservation in southern Africa (and beyond) could and
should be further explored under the label of 'sentient
conservation'. Contributors are Malcolm Draper, Vupenyu Dzingirai,
Jan-Bart Gewald, Michael Glover, Paul Hebinck, Tariro Kamuti,
Lindiwe Mangwanya, Albert Manhamo, Dhoya Snijders, Marja
Spierenburg, Sandra Swart, Harry Wels.
There is now widespread agreement that many non-human animals are
sentient, and that this fact has important moral and political
implications. Indeed, most are in agreement that animal sentience
ought to constrain the actions of political institutions, limiting
the harms that can be perpetrated against animals. The primary aim
of this book is to show that the political implications of animal
sentience go even further than this. For this book argues that
sentience establishes a moral equality and a shared set of rights
amongst those creatures who possess it. Crucially, this worth and
these rights create a duty on moral agents to establish and
maintain a political order dedicated to their interests. This book
is devoted to sketching what this 'sentientist politics' might look
like. It argues in favour of a ' sentientist cosmopolitan
democracy': a global political system made up of overlapping local,
national, regional and global communities comprised of human and
non-human members who exist within shared 'communities of fate'.
Furthermore, the institutions of those communities should be
democratic - that is to say, participative, deliberative and
representative. Finally, those institutions should include
dedicated representatives of non-human animals whose job should be
to translate the interests of animals into deliberations over what
is in the public good for their communities.
Living with Animals is a collection of imagined animal guides-a
playful and accessible look at different human-animal relationships
around the world. Anthropologists and their co-authors have written
accounts of how humans and animals interact in labs, in farms, in
zoos, and in African forests, among other places. Modeled after the
classic A World of Babies, an edited collection of imagined Dr.
Spock manuals from around the world-With Animals focuses on
human-animal relationships in their myriad forms. This is
ethnographic fiction for those curious about how animals are used
for a variety of different tasks around the world. To be sure,
animal guides are not a universal genre, so Living with Animals
offers an imaginative solution, doing justice to the ways details
about animals are conveyed in culturally specific ways by adopting
a range of voices and perspectives. How we capitalize on animals,
how we live with them, and how humans attempt to control the
untamable nature around them are all considered by the authors of
this wild read. If you have ever experienced a moment of "what if"
curiosity-what is it like to be a gorilla in a zoo, to work in a
pig factory farm, to breed cows and horses, this book is for you. A
light-handed and light-hearted approach to a fascinating and
nuanced subject, Living with Animals suggests many ways in which we
can and do coexist with our non-human partners on Earth.
"Who Speaks for Earthlings?" is a collection of Richard J Deboo's
articles, poems and speeches primarily, but not exclusively, on the
subject of animal rights. Always full of passion and utterly
committed to justice, compassion and love for all lives the
writings collected here will inspire and inform; by turns playful,
resolute, determined and angry, Richard's words shine a bright,
blazing candle on the lies and hypocrisy at the heart of the animal
abuse industries of animal farming, research and the exploitation
of animals in sport and entertainment. As a species we commit many
cruel and unimaginably violent and brutal acts against our fellow
Earthlings, but these writings show that we can do things another
way - we can think and live differently. In so doing we can change
the world, not only for ourselves but for all those who share this
Earth with us.
Provides cross-disciplinary perspectives on the study of animals in
humanitiesThis volume critically investigates current topics and
disciplines that are affected, enriched or put into dispute by the
burgeoning scholarship on Animal Studies. What new questions and
modes of research need come into play if we are to seriously
acknowledge our entanglements with other animals? World-leading
scholars from a range of disciplines, including Literature,
Philosophy, Art, Biosemiotics, and Geography, set the agenda for
Animal Studies today. Rather than a narrow specialism, the 35 newly
commissioned essays in this book show how we think of other animals
to be intrinsic to fields as major as ethics, economies as
widespread as capitalism and relations as common as friendship.The
volume contains original, cutting-edge research and opens up new
methods, alignments, directions as well as challenges for the
future of Animal Studies. Uniquely, the chapters each focus on a
single topic, from 'Abjection' to 'Voice' and from 'Affection' to
'Technology', thus embedding the animal question as central to
contemporary concerns across a wide range of disciplines.Key
FeaturesProvides in one work prominent scholars in animal studies
and their reflections on the trajectory of the fieldEmbeds the
'animal question' as central to contemporary concerns across a wide
range of disciplinesBrings discourses from the sciences into
dialogue with the arts and humanitiesOpens up new methods,
alignments, directions and challenges for the future of animal
studiesAfterword from Cary Wolfe (Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie
Professor of English, Rice University)
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