Written and spoken words : representations of animals and intimacy

In this paper I explore the differences in the ways people write and talk about their relationships with animals, focussing on those they regard as kin and with whom they live. I draw on responses to the Animals and Humans Mass-Observation directive, which was sent out in the summer of 2009, and 21 in-depth interviews with people who share their domestic space with animals. I suggest that writing about relationships with animals produces a particularly intimate representation which is almost confessional, while talking to another person about similar relationships renders the intimacy less obvious and represents human-animal relations in a different way. I argue that this is because the written accounts are composed with a particular audience in mind, the information divulged is not mediated by another human being and, as a result, normative constraints are less pervasive. Interview data, in contrast, are co-constructed in conversation with another person, there is the possibility of judgment during the course of the interview and normative expectations shape the discursive representation of human-animal intimacy. I reflect on the methodological implications of these findings for developing an understanding of intimacy across the species barrier

Post-human families? Dog-human relations in the domestic sphere

In this article I explore the ways in which dogs and other companion species become family members and engage with the argument that this indicates the emergence of post-human families. Using empirical data from responses to a Mass Observation directive on Animals and Humans and in-depth interviews with people who share their homes with companion animals, I explore the ways in which humans and dogs live with each other and the 'daily practices of kinship' which constitute them as kin. I argue that practices of kinship blur the species barrier but that human-dog relations take place in the context of unequal power relations which are an inevitable consequence of dogs' incorporation into families as dependents. I conclude that while it may be possible to identify post-human practices in multi-species households, they exist alongside practices which reinforce the human-animal boundary and that, given the unequal relations of entanglement within which humans and animals interact, attempts to identify empirically a post-human family seem problematic. What can be said, however, is that a post-human approach to kinship practices highlights the porousness of the category human and alerts us both to the deep connections between humans and other animals and to the profoundly unequal ways in which animals are incorporated into social relations with humans

Social Change and the Family

This paper explores the social change of the past 40 years through reporting the results of a restudy. It argues that social change can be understood, culturally, as involving a process of de-institutionalisation and, structurally, as involving differentiation within elementary family groups as well as within extended family networks. Family change is set in the context of changes in the housing and labour markets and the demographic, industrial and occupational changes of the past 40 years. These changes are associated with increases in women\'s economic activity rates and a decrease in their \'degree of domesticity\'. They are also associated with increasing differentiation within families such that occupational heterogeneity is now found at the heart of the elementary family as well as within kinship groupings as was the case 40 years ago. Thus the trend towards increased differentiation identified in the original study (Rosser and Harris: The Family and Social Change) has continued into the 21st century. This is associated with a de-institutionalisation of family life and an increasing need for partners to negotiate participation in both productive and reproductive work.De-Institutionalisation, Social Change, Restudy, Occupational Differentiation, Extended Family

Transforming Masculinist Political Cultures? Doing Politics in New Political Institutions

In the devolved legislative assemblies of Scotland and Wales the proportion of women representatives is approaching parity. This is in marked contrast to Westminster where one in five MPs are women. In this paper we explore the extent to which the masculinist political cultures characterising established political institutions are being reproduced in the National Assembly for Wales or whether its different gendering, both in the numbers of women representatives and in terms of its institutional framework, is associated with a more feminised political and organisational culture. Drawing on interviews with half the Assembly Members, women and men, we show that the political style of the Assembly differs from that of Westminster and that Assembly Members perceive it as being more consensual and as embodying a less aggressive and macho way of doing politics. AMs relate this difference to the gender parity amongst Assembly Members, to the institutional arrangements which have an \'absolute duty\' to promote equality embedded in them, and to the desire to develop a different way of doing politics. We suggest that the ability to do politics in a more feminised and consensual way relates not only to the presence of a significant proportion of women representatives, but also to the nature of the institution and the way in which differently gendered processes and practices are embedded within it. Differently gendered political institutions can develop a more feminised political culture which provides an alternative to the masculinist political culture characterising the political domain.Gender, Political Culture, New Political Institutions, Consensus Politics, Political Style, National Assembly for Wales

New British feminisms, UK Feminista and young women’s activism

In recent years there has been a resurgence of feminist activism in the UK with young women becoming increasingly interested in feminist ideas as a means of making sense of their lives. This is accompanied by claims from media commentators that we are witnessing a third or even fourth wave of feminism, and debates within feminist theory over the meaning of the wave metaphor and whether it is helpful in understanding the temporality of feminist activism. In this paper we engage with this debate, suggesting that our understanding of waves and how they are amplified could benefit from an analysis of feminist activism which draws on concepts borrowed from social movement theory. In order to do this we examine the renaissance of feminist activism through the example of one of the most active and publicly visible organisations in the UK, UK Feminista. Drawing on ethnographic research into young women’s feminist activism we explore the role of UK Feminista in mobilising young women, focussing particularly on the role of the Internet in young women’s engagement with feminism, the forms of activism in which they take part, and the importance of feminist cultural memory to the construction of a collective feminist identity. We begin with a consideration of the wave metaphor and its relation to the idea of cycles of protest

The animal challenge to sociology

In this article, we ask why is it that sociology has been slow to take up the animal challenge, and ask what would happen if it did. We argue that sociology’s fraught relationship with biology, its assumptions about human exceptionalism and its emergence in the context of industrialization and urbanization are key to understanding its lack of attention to animals and contribute to a limited conceptualization of society. This can be remedied by viewing non-human animals as involuntarily embedded in social relationships, a move which involves a redefinition of the social and of what it means to be human; a revision of notions of agency, subjectivity and reflexivity; and a rejection of the speciesism and anthropocentrism on which sociology is based. Finally, the article contends that a full understanding of society is not possible if we continue to direct the sociology gaze only at humans

‘I’m a feminist, I’m not ashamed and I’m proud’ : young people’s activism and feminist identities in Estonia, Spain and the UK

This paper explores the upsurge in young people's activism across Europe by drawing on three ethnographic studies of feminist and LGBT activism. The studies include a feminist organisation, UK Feminista, in a stable liberal democracy, the Feministes Indignades in post-fascist Spain, and the LGBT movement in post-communist Estonia. The paper argues that feminist identities, both individual and collective, are critical to the feminist and LGBT movements studied; that affect, both positive and negative, contributes to processes of mobilisation and identity formation; and that, while social media are an important element of repertoires of action in all three cases, the forms of action engaged in draw on a range of cultural resources, many of which derive from earlier cycles of protest. It pays particular attention to the ‘coming out’ stories of activists, the transformation of fear and shame into anger and pride which is central both to transforming individual identities and creating collective identities, and how these processes differ in the three case studies

Fulfilling your dog's potential: changing dimensions of power in dog training cultures

This article explores the workings of power in dog training cultures through an analysis of UK dog training manuals from the mid-19th century to the present. We focus on gundog and companion dog training cultures, investigating the dog-human relations they assume, the changing conceptions of human-animal relations they represent, and the inequalities and relations of power in which they are embedded. Rather than thinking about changing training practices in terms of a shift from dominance to positive training, or from instrumental to affective relations, we argue that training cultures reveal how inter-species inequalities are conceptualised and reproduced in a range of historical periods and cultural spaces. We suggest that dog training cultures can be distinguished by contrasting understandings of dogs as: (1) rational, thinking beings, (2) instinctive creatures, and (3) autonomous active agents as well as by the inequalities of gender, class, race and species structuring the spaces in which they are embedded. Furthermore, the modalities of power which characterise dog training cultures favour different groups of human actors rather than dogs, even in training cultures which are based on partnership and are ‘dog centred’. Our analysis shows how inter-species relations are lived and thought through the cultural practices of dog training

‘Imagine you are a Dog’ : embodied learning in multi-species research

Based upon a multi-species ethnography of companion dog training in the UK, this paper examines the training class as a site of inter-species communication through which dogs and their humans are mutually affected and transformed. We argue that dog training represents an important form of multi-species learning in which participants (human trainer, trainee and canine) shape one another, jointly if asymmetrically, through the performance of particular tasks and challenges. Successful training requires ‘attunement’ to the haptic and sensory experiences of another species and the creation of shared embodied languages through which relationships of trust and reciprocity are formed. Responding to calls for less human-centred methods we examine the possibilities of visual and ethnographic methods for capturing the ‘animal’s point of view’ and explore how deep ethnographic involvement of the researcher’s own body can draw attention to the everyday complexities of embodied inter-species communication. We consider the importance of our own embodied learning in decentring the human in the research process, engendering a corporeal understanding of the multi-sensory nature of inter-species interaction and transforming ourselves in the process. Through the use of ethnographic vignettes, photos and video stills we highlight the importance of body language, sound, touch, smell and training atmospheres in the creation of shared knowledges. In doing so we explore the possibilities of such methods for evoking the affective dimensions of human-canine interactions and attending to the complex and multiple actors and sensibilities which comprise multi-species training relationships

Wind and solar curtailment

High penetrations of wind and solar generation on power systems are resulting in increasing curtailment. Wind and solar integration studies predict increased curtailment as penetration levels grow. This paper examines experiences with curtailment on bulk power systems internationally. It discusses how much curtailment is occurring, how it is occurring, why it is occurring, and what is being done to reduce curtailment. This summary is produced as part of the International Energy Agency Wind Task 25 on Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of Wind Power