Embodying Anthropomorphism: Contextualizing Commonality in the Material Landscape

Abstract

The status of anthropomorphism has changed in reoent decades, allowing for in-depth consideration of its meaning and saiience. Advocates of anthropomorphism have put forth a series of scientific and theoretical arguments to establish the concept's legitimacy. Nonetheless, while many advocates of anthropomorphism criticize the scientific worldview that objectifies nonhumans, their arguments still retan a cognitive perspective that implicitly reaffirms human-nonhuman hierarchies. This paper challenges these notions by accentuating the role of material factors in the formation and dissemination of anthropomorphic thought. These materials include human and nonhuman bodies, as well as the physicality of the external environment. This paper also examines the different ways in which social factors blend with these material factors to bring about anthropomorphic thinking. To clarify these issues, this paper examines an ongoing human conflict with harbor seals in La Jolla, California to illustrate these points. It concludes by suggesting that materialist articulations of anthropomorphism may foster an ethical perspective with environmental significance.

Mediated animal geographies: symbolism, manipulation and the imaginary in advertising

“…As Lulka (2008) argues, anthropomorphism is not simply the result of social action but rather occurs through interactions between the social, the environmental and the nonhuman. Bodies and context are significant because they serve as the basis for identifying similarities between human and nonhuman, particularly in terms of interactions with the environment around childrearing, social behaviour, feeding and shelter (Keul, 2013).…”

“…McCrindle and Odendaal (1994, p. 137) define anthropomorphism as 'an animal presented in human form', also described as, 'the attribution of human mental states to nonhuman animals' (Serpell, 2003, p. 83). Anthropomorphism, then, is generated in the language, meanings and metaphors that we use to understand but also to relate to other beings (Lulka, 2008). The presence of petkeeping and the almost universal anthropomorphic state of pets and certain animals within society are indicative.…”