Rogue elephants in the news: A cultural-discursive study.

Abstract

Using a constructivist grounded-theory framework, the present article is an investigation of popular news media reports of captive elephant escapes and attacks in the United States from the last quarter-century. The article looks at the ways elephants in such events are framed discursively to understand how they are regarded across a range of people and institutions. This article uses the "rogue elephant" as a lens through which to explore the human-animal relationship, interrogate the language that constitutes that relationship, and examine the place of the animal in an increasingly anthropocentric society. The article offers a theory, grounded in the data, that the human-animal relationship is an exercise in controlling the uncontrollable. Additionally, building on the concept of animal resistance, the article identifies an issue at the center of the ongoing ecological crisis as a failure of imagination and hints at the beginnings of a new animal ethics.

Introduction to this special issue on human–animal relations.

“…In the final section of the research articles, a more explicit moral dimension is explored across several domains, involving the perceptions and decisions of humans regarding animal welfare. Granden (2023) provides a “cultural-discursive study” of the human–animal relationship in the context of the observed behavior of “rogue elephants” and explores how elephants’ aberrant behaviors are discussed, framed, and understood by humans. Burke et al’s (2023) study compares the difference of impact of moral outrage on jurors’ assignment of punishments to individuals’ abusive behaviors toward humans on the one hand and animals on the other hand.…”