Human-Animal Studies

1. Human-Animal Studies Service Learning and Experiential Projects

2. What Is It? Human-Animal Studies (HAS) is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field that examines the complex and multidimensional relationships between humans and other animals. HAS comprises work in several disciplines in the social sciences (sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science) the humanities (history, literary criticism, philosophy, geography), and the natural sciences (ethology, veterinary medicine, animal welfare science, and comparative psychology). See https://www.animalsandsociety.org

3. Issues Researchers in animal studies examine the questions and issues that arise when traditional modes of humanistic and scientific inquiry begin to take animals seriously as subjects of thought and activity. Students of animal studies may examine how humanity is defined in relation to animals, or how representations of animals create understandings (and misunderstandings) of other species. In order to do so, animal studies pays close attention to the ways that humans anthropomorphize animals, and asks how humans might avoid bias in observing other creatures. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_studies)

4. Beginnings The Service Learning Class circa 2004 (English 315 for non-majors) --readings of early works of literature that were important to the beginnings of the animal welfare movement (RSPCA) such as Black Beauty and more recent popular animal-centered fiction (The Art of Racing in the Rain) --exploration of the debate surrounding Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Liberation --an initial set of readings on animal sentience coupled with short stories with animal narrators (Nagel’s famous “What’s It Like to be a Bat?”)

5. The Service Learning Component Students volunteered at two forms of animal shelters --Kill shelters (usually Parish Animal Control Shelters) --No kill shelters (usually private and often not associated with national organizations like the Humane Society of America) --They kept reflective journals about their observations and experiences and their own ideas about animals, including where these ideas came from! --They interviewed the paid employees of the organizations to discover their understandings of and attitudes toward the animals in the shelter, the purposes of the organization, and the laws that governed its functioning.

6. Results • They wrote reflective essays about their experiences bringing these experiences into dialogue with the course readings. • They presented their findings to the class. • A good percentage of the students ended up adopting animals from the shelters where they worked. • Several continued to volunteer at a shelter--almost none did so at the kill shelters.

7. The Class for Majors(and graduate students) Hal Herzog’s Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat --The human-animal distinction in philosophy and culture and its consequences. --Animal experiments (we looked at language experiments) --Breeding and commodification of animals --Animals as food --Extinction --Climate Change

8. Readings • Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Del Ray, 1996. • Roger Fouts, Next of Kin, William Morrow, 1998. • Barbara Gowdy, White Bone, Picador, 2000. • David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Ecco, 2009. • Mark Bittner, Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Broadway, 2005. • Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats, Penguin, 1999. • Irene Pepperberg, Alex and Me, Harper Perennial, 2009. • AmitavGhosh, The Hungry Tide, MarinerPress, 2006.

9. The ‘Animal’ Project An exploratory research project where students investigated some aspect of the human-animal relationship in our contemporary world. Required multiple site visits. Required conducting interviews with people who work at the sites. Required research on the issues involving the site and its purposes, regulation, and history.

10. Goals to come to an understanding of the chosen arena of human-animal interaction to do field research and to bring this into conversation with scholarly or critical approaches and concepts to reflect critically one their own presuppositions, assumptions, and (sometimes) prejudices

11. The Portfolio • A 250-word project proposal where the student discussed what drew him/her to investigate the particular aspect of human-animal interaction with an initial set of questions, reflections on any presuppositions about it and a discussion of the possible sites, and identification of people to interview, or activities the student might engage in. • Consistent research notes, taken during the research and site visits and including “raw” information as well as reflections after the fact. • Notes and documentation of background research on the area of human-animal relations they were investigating. • A 6-8 page report of findings, shaped by a conceptual framework that allowed the student to make interpretive claims about his/her observations and experiences. • A presentation of their findings to the class.

12. What They Did • Almost all of the students drew on family or connections through friends to gain access to sites and personnel that they might not otherwise have met as a member of the public. • Site visits to the Audubon Zoo with research on the evolving policies and purposes of zoos. • Examined the commodification of animals, particularly “pets” by visiting pet stores, specialty breeders, and interviewing Humane Society spokespersons. • Investigated the preparation for and the “events” of a rodeo (the student was from Texas and looked at a rodeo there)

13. What they Did • Slaughterhouse site visit (only one student has ever done this—she went to three different slaughterhouses, including Tyson’s). • Two modes of animal-assisted therapy (main focus on the use of therapy dogs to assist children giving testimony in court), though the student also went to a site that provides equestrian therapeutic experiences for disabled children) • New Horizon: one student investigated the connection between the spousal abuse and the abuse of animals and the ways mistreatment or the threat of mistreatment of a companion animal is sometimes used by an abuser to control a woman. Her investigation involved the use of social media platforms and interviews with social workers and animal cruelty investigators. What was new here was her use of social media as a “site” for investigation.

14. Next StepsWhich Model? Service Learning Advantages: • More intensive experience • Provides grounds for comparison • Allows for development of relationships and therefore deeper understanding of the issues and limitations of the organization • (If I follow this model, I need to diversify the service learning possibilities) Disadvantages: • Students struggled to free up hours from work and school to engage consistently in the service learning experience

15. Which Model Interview-Site Visit Advantages: • Greater flexibility • Allowed students to draw on pre-existing relationships and connections • Allowed students more readily to pursue issues in which they already had some investment and interest Disadvantages: Aside from the brave student who went to the slaughterhouses, this seems to be a less intensive experience, particularly if the interviews are with people who are previously unknown and if they do not interact with the same individuals on subsequent site visits.