Animals, Society and Culture

1. Animals, Society and Culture Lecture 16 Embodiment – the elephant and the ant 2012-13

2. Lecture outline • Changes in the way animals have been studied in natural sciences • Studying animals sociologically • Phenomenology and the body • Symbolic interaction and the self • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeLsEGPjdU

3. Behaviourism • Behaviour mechanical response to external stimulus • Can’t impute feelings/thoughts from behaviour • Skinner and Pavlov • Challenged by ethology

4. Primate ethnographies • Louis Leakey • Jane Goodall – chimpanzees • Dian Fossey – mountain gorillas • Irute Galidkas – orang utangs • Young women ‘without the scientific prejudices of the masculine world of modern science’ (Haraway, 1989:15)

5. Jane Goodall • Named chimps • Historical events shape chimp society • Chimps use and make tools • Chimp societies have different cultures • ‘One by one, over the years, many words once used to describe human behaviour have crept into scientific accounts of non-human animal behaviour. When, in the early 1960s, I brazenly used such words as ‘childhood’, ‘adolescence’, ‘motivation’, ‘excitement’, and ‘mood’ I was much criticised. Even worse was my crime of suggesting that chimpanzees had personalities. I was ascribing human characteristics to non-human animals and was thus guilty of that worst of ethological sins – anthropomorphism.’ (Goodall, 1993:12)

6. Theory of mind • Irene Pepperburg and Alex the African grey parrot • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiARReTwBw • ‘Many nonhuman animals show some but not all aspects of theory-of-mind, self awareness, culture, reciprocal altruism, planning, and so on. Whereas an outcome-based science stresses differences, a focus on process brings equal attention to commonalities. So, even if humans build cathedrals and produce symphonies, this is no reason to place them beyond comparison: the underlying processes (e.g., social learning, tool use, musical appreciation, sense of rhythm, coordination) are likely shared with other animals’ (deWaal, 2012:4).

7. Empathy • ‘automatic and widespread bodily connections’ (de Waal, 2012: 8) • ‘Most mechanisms are evolutionarily ancient, tying together phenomena such as the imitation of song learning in birds and tool use in primates or the prosocial tendencies of both humans and other mammals.’ (de Waal, 2012:8)

8. Phenomenology • Merlau Ponty • The body • The senses • Different embodied ways of being in the world • Different way of experiencing the world - Umwelt

9. Key reading • Kenneth Shapiro • Kinaesthetic empathy – embodied empathy, not conscious of it in thought • How can he understand his dog through kinaesthetic empathy rather than through trying to understand consciousness

10. Symbolic interaction and self • Leslie Irvine (2004) If you tame me, Temple University Press • Ethnographic study of animal shelter • ‘Animals have elements of a core self that becomes present to us through interaction with them’ (Irvine, 2004:3) • Controversial for sociology to claim that animals have a sense of self

11. George Herbert Mead • Language central to development of sense of self • Animals lack capacity ‘to use significant symbols’ so are ‘incapable of having any meaningful social behaviour’ (Irvine, 2009: 329) • Meaningful social behaviour is behaviour that can be reflected upon

12. ‘If you tame me’ • 300 hours participant observation in animal shelter • Auto-ethnography • 40 interviews with people who had adopted animal from shelter • Themes • Seek relationships with animals • Express concern for well-being • Engage in increasingly complex behaviours with them

13. Model of self • Agency • Coherence • Affectivity • Self-history

14. Findings contested • C. Jerolmack (2005) ‘Our animals, our selves? Chipping away the human-animal divide’ in Sociological Forum, 20 (4): 651-660 • Distinction between intersubjectivity and taking the role of the other • Don’t need shared understanding to be able to interact

15. Summary • Study of animal behaviour has changed – much more recognition now of shared characteristics – process – rather than focussing only on outcome. • Have looked at 2 approaches within sociology • (1) phenomenology which recognises the importance of bodily and non-linguistic forms of communication • (2) symbolic interaction which also argues – contra Mead – that a sense of self is not dependent on language. • These developments – in ethology as well as sociology – question the species barrier and look at human and animal behaviour as a continuum rather than seeing a sharp break between humans and other animals.

16. References • de Waal, FBM and Ferrari, PF (eds) (2012) The primate mind, Harvard University Press • Fossey, D (1985) Gorillas in the Mist, Phoenix • Goodall, J (1993) ‘Chimpanzees: bridging the gap’ in Cavalieri, P and Singer, P (eds) The Great Ape Project, St Martin’s Griffin • Goodall, J (1999) In the shadow of man, Phoenix • Haraway, D (1989) Primate Visions, Routledge • Irvine, L (2009) ‘Animal Selfhood’ in Arluke, A and Sanders, C (eds) Between the Species, Pearson