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Introduction to “Animal Issues”
Lynda Birke
Section Editor
With this issue, Society & Animals launches a new section of the
journal, “Animal Issues.” Taking over from the journal, Animal
Issues, the section will focus on conceptual/philosophical
aspects and cover areas of potential controversy or debate. The
series begins with the article, "Bears, Zoos and Wilderness: The
Poverty of Social Constructionism." The author, Daniel Dombroski,
poses several thought-provoking and challenging questions
relevant to a great deal of research on human-animal
relationships.
How we think about “nature” is a difficult and provocative
question. Does nature have a reality outside us, or is our
understanding of it always mediated by social meanings? Does
nature exist or is it an idea as socially constructed as a
traffic light? Anyone working on issues to do with nature or
animals must, at some time, deal with this central and
apparently irreconcilable tension between realism and social
constructionism. At different times, we may make different
decisions: Dombroski reminds us that if we run headlong into a
bear on a hiking trail, we are unlikely to spend much time
pondering the construction of meanings of bears. Later, we might
tell the story of our narrow escape and weave a tale of bears as
symbols of wildness. Similarly, various authors may reach
different conclusions at different times about the significance
of social constructionism in how they think about animals.
Dombroski throws out some challenges to others concerned about
the realism versus constructionism debate. In particular, he
wonders whether social constructionists meaningfully can argue
particular ethical positions. Moral debates loom large in our
studies of the human-animal relationship, so this is a
significant question. Dombroski focuses on the dilemmas of
keeping animals specifically bears in zoos. If the argument
against keeping bears in zoos rests on assumptions that doing so
conflicts with the autonomy of bears and their loss of freedoms
of the wild, then how does that fit with the notion of "bears"
as socially constructed ideas?
How we define nature is a critically important theme underlying
our work in thinking about animals and one we all need to
address. To think about animals, we must constantly ask, What is
an animal? What is nature? What is wild? This article focuses on
a specific kind of animal: bears highly potent symbols, icons
of raw, untamed wilderness. Yet, most people are likely to
encounter them in captivity, in zoos, thus turning meanings on
their head. Zoos, Dombroski notes, are human inventions that
many might question. Do they as they often claim fulfill a
purpose in conservation? Rather, are they merely glorified
prisons, removing the true authenticity of the animals?
These questions provide, I believe, a good starting point for
"Animal Issues," which is a forum for airing such contentious
themes. Dombroski has raised a number of these questions in his
provocative article. I hope that it will stimulate further
discussion and debate.
To reply to these issues please send a manuscript of no more
than 1000 words, either electronically by attachment in
Microsoft Word or as a disk. Papers on a new topic should be no
more than 3000 words.
The "Animal Issues" section focuses specifically on
conceptual/philosophical issues around the relationships between
humans and animals. We particularly welcome papers that open up
new areas of debate. Before submission, please consult the
contributors’ guidelines published on the inside cover of each
issue of Society & Animals. Submit manuscripts and
correspondence to Dr. Lynda Birke, Institute for Women's
Studies, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK, LA1 4YW.
E-mail: ghv37@dial.pipex.com
For Abstracts of all issues, including the most current, click
Article
Abstracts
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