The State of Human-Animal Studies: Solid, at the Margin!

Kenneth J. Shapiro

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of Society and Animals, we present a set of 13 papers obtained through individual invitations and a general call for papers on the state of Human-Animal Studies (HAS). For the purposes of this exercise, we defined HAS broadly as the remit of S&A as it has evolved over the 10 years to include empirical investigations and conceptual analyses of human-animal relationships in both the social sciences and the humanities. We asked contributors to respond to two questions: What has your field contributed to animal studies thus far? What does your field need to do to advance animal studies? The fields represented in the anniversary issue are psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, geography, political science, economics, history, postcolonial studies, and feminist studies.
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Doctoral Dissertations in Human-Animal Studies: News and Views

Kathleen C. Gerbasi, David C. Anderson, Alexandra M. Gerbasi, and Debbie Coultis

Previous work (Balcombe, 1999) reported a considerable increase in the number of post-secondary courses offered on Animals and Society. An alternative view of the current state of Human Animal Studies HAS is to go a step further and look at the numbers of HAS doctoral dissertations completed over the past two decades. For that purpose this study compares numbers and characteristics of doctoral dissertations in HAS from 1980 to 1999. The study uses the decade of the 1980s as a basis of comparison for the 1990s.
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Psychology and the Study of Human-Animal Relationships

Gail F. Melson

The breadth and diversity of psychology as a discipline resists easy generalization. Sub-fields; psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, environmental psychology, the psychology of religion, and the psychology of women all crowd under the umbrella of the American Psychological Association. No unifying theory unites these disparate branches of the psychology “tree.” Indeed, guiding assumptions, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies are not only distinct but also often contradictory. Publication outlets mirror their disciplinary tracks.
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The "Furry Ceiling": Clinical Psychology and Animal Studies

Carol D. Raupp

Clinical psychology attempts to describe and explain mental disorders to prevent or remedy these problems. Historically, animals other humans made few appearances in the clinical psychology literature except in association with fetishes, phobias, and research models of human disorders. Today, most clinically relevant research efforts in Animal Studies are directed toward understanding animal cruelty's connection with psychopathology and toward developing therapeutic human-animal interactions in service settings. Although Animal Studies has broadened our understanding of clinical issues and opportunities in our relationships with other animals, it remains separate from mainstream clinical psychology.
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Darwinism and the Study of Human-Animal Interactions

Harold Herzog

The geneticist Dobzhansky (1973) once wrote, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” A growing number of social scientists believe that the same could be said of psychology. Based on the theoretical foundations laid by sociobiologists in the 1970s and 1980s, evolutionary psychology has emerged as a recognized paradigm in the behavioral sciences (Buss, 1999; Tooby & Cosmides,1992). Although evolutionary psychologists are not always of like mind, most of them would agree with the following tenets:

The forces of natural and sexual selection shaped the human brain over millions of years. These processes have produced evolved psychological mechanisms influenced by both genes and culture.
For the vast majority of human history, we lived as hunter-gathers. Our mental mechanisms evolved in the context of this environment of evolutionary adaptation. As Cosmides and Tooby (1997) put it, “Our modern skulls house a stone age mind.”
Our ancestors confronted sets of specific problems (avoiding predation, finding food, detecting liars, attracting mates). Thus, the human brain is not a general-purpose problem solver. Rather, our minds are composed of somewhat separate modules that have evolved to deal with various adaptive problems. In other words, the mind is “domain specific.”
Not surprisingly, evolutionary psychology is controversial and has been criticized on methodological, theoretical and political grounds (Rose & Rose, 2000). However, as illustrated by increased coverage in introductory psychology textbooks and courses taught in psychology departments, the field rapidly is joining the intellectual mainstream. In this essay, I briefly discuss three intellectually exciting Darwinian ideas that are particularly germane to the study of human-animal interactions.
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A Sociology of Sociological Animal Studies

Arnold Arluke

I am convinced that the most formidable barriers to the future development of sociological nonhuman animal studies are internal rather than external to sociology. The obstacles come from sociologists, both those who do and do not do research in this area, and how they think about the study of human-nonhuman animal relationships. As I considered these barriers, and how future research could address or remedy them, I found myself asking some old questions that some sociologists have asked before, such as why is there a lack of interest within sociology to animal studies, and some new questions, such as should sociologists who do animal studies adopt a different approach to this area? Despite the fact that some of these issues are inevitably part of the formation and growth of any new specialty, I do not think it is a waste of time to pose these Asociology of sociology@ concerns and revisit them from time to time to foster healthy self-reflection and awareness, if not some new strategies for growth.
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Social Animals: Animal Studies and Sociology

Corwin R. Kruse

In 2001, after substantial debate, the American Sociological Association granted section-in-formation status to a new Animals and Society section. Not all sociologists have been overjoyed with this development (Perrow, 2000). This is unfortunate, but expected. As Noske (1991) has noted, "the social sciences tend to present themselves pre-eminently as the sciences of discontinuity between humans and animals." Sociologists, therefore, are supposed to study people, not other creatures. Paradoxically, by concentrating exclusively on humans we have neglected an enormous facet of human existence. “By focusing on differences between humans and other animals, sociologists have lost sight of all that we share with them” (Murphy, 1995, p. 692).
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Criminology and Animal Studies: A Sociological View

Piers Beirne

Most readers of Society & Animals probably will not know that among the multi-disciplinary practitioners of criminology there is longstanding and, at times, quite heated disagreement about its proper objects of study. As a sociologist, I understand criminology to be a discourse that investigates the whys, the hows, and the whens of the generation and control of the many aspects of social harm including abuse, exclusion, pain, injury, and suffering. In this harm-based discourse, categories such as “crime,” “criminal,” and “deviance” have no ontological reality. Rather, they are social constructions that are selectively applied by a network of state and other social control apparatuses to the actions of some members of society and not to those of others. In other words, criminology tries to uncover the sources and forms of power and social inequality and their ill effects.
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Animals and Anthropology

Molly Mullin

Anthropology encompasses four distinct sub-disciplines: biological anthropology, social anthropology (known as “cultural anthropology” in North America), archaeology, and linguistics. Beyond these basic four fields, one could further divide anthropology into a nearly endless array of specializations (primatology, legal anthropology, medical anthropology, and historical archaeology, to name just a few). Of course, all fields have their divisions, but anthropology’s sub-fields are unusual for their varying and complex ties to the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. They differ radically in their preoccupations, basic assumptions, research methods, and connections to other disciplines. This diversity and scope make assessing anthropology’s relationship to Animal Studies especially challenging. Consideration of anthropology’s diversity and scope is important, however, for understanding what anthropology brings to Animal Studies and the promise Animal Studies holds for a revitalized anthropology.
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Political Science and Animal Studies

Robert Garner

Examining the state of political science’s contribution to the field of animal studies depends, to a large degree, upon the definition of “political science” one uses. If we define it in a narrow senseCto refer to the empirical and normative examination of activities centering on the stateCthen the contribution to animal studies has been minimal. If, however, we broaden the definition somewhatCto include political sociology and moral and legal, as well as political, philosophyCthen the contribution looks much more substantial. In general, however, the issue of animal protection remains a peripheral part of mainstream political science and only a minor partner in the much larger Green politics sub-field.
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History and Animal Studies

Harriet Ritvo

Animals other than human can hardly be characterized as novel historical subjects. Their remains have provided valuable evidence for historians of cultures that left little or no written trace. They traditionally have attracted the attention of economic historians, especially those who study times and places heavily dependent on agriculture. In more recent times, important animal-related institutions, from humane societies to zoos, have had their chroniclers. People distinguished in their association with animals, from breeders to hunters to scientists, have had their biographers as, indeed, have some animals distinguished in their own right: Jumbo, Greyfriars Bobby, or Seabiscuit. Specific animal-related issues or practices have received focused attention, and historians working in specialized areas continue to make use of such excellent studies as French’s Antivivisection and medical science in Victorian society (1975). Even some much earlier work continues to be useful. Specific animal-related issues or practices have received focused attention, and historians working in specialized areas continue to make use of such excellent studies as French’s. Even some much earlier work continues to be useful. For example, E. P. Evans’ survey of The criminal prosecution and capital punishment of animals, which first appeared in 1906, has been republished twice in the last twenty years; and Gustave Loisel’s expansive Histoire des ménageries de l'antiquité à nos jours, which first appeared in 1912, has not yet been superceded.
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Animal Geographies

Jody Emel, Chris Wilbert, and Jennifer Wolch

Animals other than human have been an enduring and significant focus of geographers (Wolch, Emel, & Wilbert, in press). Through the first half of the twentieth century, two approaches to the fieldC zoögeographical and cultural— were clearly articulated, reflecting the breadth of the discipline. Zoögeographers, typically affiliated with physical geography, focused on geographic distributions of animals. An identifiable branch known as “animal geography” was actively researched, at least since Newbigin (1913). The ambition was to establish general laws of how animals arranged themselves across the earth's surface or, at smaller scales, to establish patterns of spatial co-variation between animals and other environmental factors.
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The Postcolonial Animal

Philip Armstrong
Concerned as it is with the politics of historical and contemporary relations between “Western” and other cultures since 1492 or thereabouts, postcolonial studies have shown little interest in the fate of the nonhuman animal. In identifying the costs borne by non-European “others” in the pursuit of Western cultures’ sense of privileged entitlement, post-colonialists have concentrated upon “other” humans, cultures, and territories but seldom upon animals.
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The Actual and Potential Contribution of Economics to Animal Welfare Issues

Joshua M. Frank
Economics has an important, but largely unrealized, contribution to make to animal welfare issues. This is not surprising, because prevailing economic theory has a history of avoiding difficult issues that may ruin elegant, yet unrealistic, theories. One mantra often heard among economists is that interpersonal comparisons cannot be made. Persky (2001) discusses this issue. An extra dollar spent on food is beneficial to a starving person, and an extra dollar toward a 50-foot yacht is beneficial to a billionaire. Most economists, however, claim it is impossible reasonably to determine who benefits more from that dollar. This perspective severely limits the applicability of economic theory to policy issues. It is hardly surprising that economists unwilling to make welfare comparisons between two people do not consider the welfare of animals. Viewed as property, animals receive no direct economic consideration.
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Intimate Familiarities? Feminism and Human-Animal Studies

Lynda Birke

The study of human-nonhuman animal relationships, like women’s studies, is a relative newcomer to the academy. Both grew partly out of political movements of the 1970s, challenging different forms of oppression. Here, I ask whether there are insights each could draw from the other, despite their differences. I do so from personal academic experience of both: But I write also from my own engagement in those social movements of the 1970s and my belief that politics that ignore other oppressions cannot be liberatory politics for anyone.
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We are pleased to announce the winner and three second prize winners of the S&A Publication Award. First prize is publication as an article in S&A and US$500. We also publish here one-page summaries of the three second prize papers.

Anthropomorphism and Anthropomorphic Selection Beyond the “Cute Response”

James A. Serpell
This article explores the origin and evolutionary implications of anthropomorphism in the context of our relationships with animal companions. On the human side, anthropomorphic thinking enables animal companions’ social behavior to be construed in human terms, thereby allowing these nonhuman animals to function for their human owners or guardians as providers of nonhuman social support. Absence of social support is known to be detrimental to human health and well being. Therefore, anthropomorphism and its corollary, pet keeping, have obvious biological fitness implications. On the animal side, anthropomorphism constitutes a unique evolutionary selection pressure, analogous to sexual selection, which has molded the appearance, anatomy, and behavior of companion animal species so as to adapt them to their unusual ecological niche as social support providers. Although such species undoubtedly have benefited numerically from the effects of this process, the consequences of anthropomorphism are less benign when viewed from the perspective of individual animals. Indeed, anthropomorphic selection probably is responsible for some of the more severe welfare problems currently found in companion animals.

KEY WORDS: Anthropomorphism, evolution, pets, animal welfare.
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Ethnic Variations in Pet Attachment among Students at an American School of Veterinary Medicine

Sue-Ellen Brown

This study explores ethnic variations in animal companion (“pet”) attachment among 133 students in a school of veterinary medicine. The 57 White and 76 African American participants completed surveys that included background information, questions about their pets, and a pet attachment questionnaire (PAQ).

More White students owned pets than did African American students (100% vs. 86%, p<.05). White students also had significantly more pets (M = 4.05 vs. 2.18, p<.001) and more kinds of pets (M = 2.30 vs. 1.57, p<.001) and were more likely to allow pets to sleep on their beds (70% vs. 53%, p<.05). More Whites had pets sleeping in their bedrooms (86% vs. 78%, not significant). In addition, the Whites’ average PAQ score was 17, while African Americans averaged 14.01 (p< .001). Significant differences were found on PAQ questions about agreeing that no family is complete without a pet, having feelings affected by how people react to your pet, taking pets to visit friends and relatives, and keeping a picture of your pet in your wallet or on display in your home or office.
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Toward a Non-Speciesist Psychoethic

Melanie Joy

Speciesism is a ubiquitous ideology in which countless nonhuman beings are sacrificed to serve human ends (Singer, 1990). Moreover, the system may well be supported by a web of deleterious psychosocial processes (Arluke & Sanders, 1996) and, as such, can be detrimental to humans as well as nonhumans.
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Ecological Inclusion and Nonhuman Animals in the Islamic Tradition

Rod Bennison

Increasingly, humans transgress their ecological responsibilities. Instead of living within a circle of ecological interest, humans act in self-interest and at the expense of a relationship within nature that is caring and responsible. The current human inter-relationship with other animals attests to this attitude. However, evidence exists within some indigenous traditions and, to varying degrees, within all major world religions and secular traditions that human interests and actions have not always been so speciesist, anti-ecological, and irresponsible. It is argued that an ethic based on greater ecological inclusion can be generated from established traditions and belief systems.
 

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