Resisting sexism and speciesism in the social sciences: Using feminist, species‐inclusive, visual methods to value the work of women and (other) animals

Taylor, Nicola; Fraser, Heather

doi:10.1111/gwao.12246

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…We observe, record, speak and write and it is unsurprizing, therefore, that most usually what we find begs “the obvious question, where are the animals themselves in this research?” (Hamilton & Taylor, 2017, p. 2). Recent years have witnessed an emerging literature on multispecies ethnographies (Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010); that consider the involvement of animals alongside humans in a range of social practices (such as work, sport, farming, research, or companionship see Charles & Wolkowitz, 2019; Haraway, 2008; Bear et al., 2017; Taylor & Fraser, 2018). This has accompanied calls for methods better able to attend to human–animal relationships (van Dooren et al., 2016) and that attend to the “voice” of animal through visual and sonic data (Birke, 2014; Hamilton & Taylor, 2017).…”

Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Labors of love: Work, labor, and care in dog–human relations

Cudworth

2022

Gender Work & Organization

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This paper suggests that the role of “pet” might be understood as a form of labor, and a condition shaped by human work. Drawing on an empirical study of everyday lives with companion dogs it considers how the work of humans outside the home impacts the lives of people and dogs; and the kinds of carework undertaken by both people and dogs in multispecies homes. The concept of paid work has been foundational in sociology while understanding work as unpaid, privatized and invisible reproductive labor has been secured through feminist interventions. Work, has been assumed to be human exclusive, but this has been recently challenged by research on animal work. This paper deploys (eco)feminist care theory to consider how far work, labor and care might be productive categories in understanding a hitherto neglected area ‐ relationships with companion dogs.

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Section: Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Labors of love: Work, labor, and care in dog–human relations

Cudworth

2022

Gender Work & Organization

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“…A recent literature review on service animals at work reveals the great importance of such animals, yet finds that allergies, phobias and workflow disruptions endanger the organizational support of canine 2 presence (Hunter et al, 2019). The aim here is to ‘dig deeper’ and align with recent claims that dominance of humans over animals and their relegation to inferior other is analogous to the way humans repress other humans that are deemed ‘too’ different (Clarke and Knights, 2018; Taylor and Fraser, 2019). Through interviews, photographs and observations of eight service dog-disabled employee pairs in different workplaces, the following questions are examined: how are service dogs in/excluded in the organizations under study?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

On ableism and anthropocentrism: A canine perspective on the workplace inclusion of disabled people

Jammaers

2021

Human Relations

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Despite growing attention for how disabled people become Othered in organizational settings and similar scholarly interest in the treatment of non-humans at work, no analysis so far has focused on the potential double marginalization that takes place when disabled people go to work with their service animal. In filling this void, this study draws attention to the embodied entanglement of ‘humanimal’ in a number of organizations where animals are unexpected. The study argues that the spatial, discursive and affective treatment of service dogs operates as a proxy for the in/exclusion of employees with mobility and visual impairments. This way, processes of ableism become masked as subtle and indirect performances towards non-human Others. Contributions are made towards several literatures by introducing the idea of a ‘proxy’ to help understand the different modes of peripheral inclusion of disabled employees via their legally accepted service animals, by bringing in the role of affect in workplace disablement, and finally by taking animal labour more seriously.

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“…There is now emerging literature on multispecies ethnographies that aims to address the experience of non-human animals when they are involved with humans in practices of work, sport, farming, research, or companionship (see e.g., Birke, 2014;Charles and Wolkowitz, 2019;Ginn, 2013;Despret, 2004Despret, , 2008Despret, , 2013Haraway, 2008;Lorimer, 2010;Miele, 2016;Srinivasan, 2013;Taylor & Fraser, 2018). However there remains a clear division of labour: the social scientists have an array of tools for exploring human experiences, and the animal scientists (ethologists, animal welfare scientists, animal behaviour experts) have their methods for grasping the experience of the non-human animals (Barua & Sinha, 2019).…”

Section: Multispecies Research As (Training) Technologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding

Smith

Miele

Charles

et al. 2021

Trans Inst British Geog

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Funding informationLeverhulme Trust -Shaping inter-species connectedness: training cult.To develop and illustrate the potential for visual methodologies in conducting multispecies ethnography, we present a case study of general-purpose police dog training in the UK. Our argument is two-fold: first, we draw on STS approaches and insights for looking at training activities as material and socio-cultural devices that, we argue, constitute a training technology. Here we have been influenced by the work of Cussins and adopted her concept of "ontological choreographies" for addressing the development of the police dog-police officer bond and ability to communicate for working together. Second, we argue that visual data capture presents valuable opportunities for "less human-centred" and more symmetrical methods to approach non-human/more than human research subjects. We illustrate how photo diaries and video clips enabled us to remain attentive to the material and embodied practices of dog training, bringing to the fore the dogs' actions, tools, and devices and thus enlivening the material-cultural choreographies of the training activities. In conclusion, we elucidate how this onto-epistemological approach enabled us to investigate the material and corporeal construction of the general purpose (GP) police dog. K E Y W O R D S animal geography, dog training, human-animal relationship, multispecies ethnography, ontological choreographies, visual methods | INTRODUCTIONThis paper focuses on the experience of training for general purpose police dogs (GP dogs) and their human handlers, based on research conducted with a police force in the UK. 1 We are aware that training to become a police dog accounts only for a limited part of a dog's life and that, once dogs start to work with their handlers, a set of questions arise about how their deployment may put members of the public at risk. In fact, there is significant literature pointing to the predatory use of police dogs against African Americans in the USA (Spruill, 2016) and against black people in South Africa as a regular police strategy (Shear, 2008). While in the UK there is no evidence that such issues are so prominent, a BBC report in 2014 indicated that 150 innocent people in the UK were attacked by police dogs between 2011 and 2013. 2 However, the aim of this paper is not to discuss the use of dogs in police work, and we know that the reality of their working lives will always be affected by the dominant policies of those involved. We believe that accounts of practices that involve non-human animals (police dogs as well as other working animals) often tend to efface non-human subjectivities. How non-human animals are enrolled and learn to work with humans in multispecies practices tends to disappear and the roles of animals are often reduced to becoming instruments of human work (a toolkit) whose capabilities and subjectivities are left unexplored.

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Resisting sexism and speciesism in the social sciences: Using feminist, species‐inclusive, visual methods to value the work of women and (other) animals

Cited by 14 publications

References 35 publications

Labors of love: Work, labor, and care in dog–human relations

Labors of love: Work, labor, and care in dog–human relations

On ableism and anthropocentrism: A canine perspective on the workplace inclusion of disabled people

Becoming with a police dog: Training technologies for bonding

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