Gender,nature and dominance : an analysis of interconnections between patriarchy and anthroparchy, using examples of meat and pornography

This thesis investigates the relationship between gender and ecology. It conceptualizes relations of difference and inequality socially constructed upon gender and nature as part of specific systems of oppression: patriarchy (male domination) and anthroparchy (human domination of the environment). It does not see these oppressions as isolated, but as relatively autonomous and interconnected. It critiques green theory as gender-blind, and feminist theory, with the exception of eco-feminism, as nature-blind. Drawing upon analyses within eco-feminism, radical feminism and other literature in sociology, it develops a dual systems approach in order to examine the relationship between patriarchy and anthroparchy as one characterized both by harmony and mutual reinforcement, and by conflict and difference in terms of the forms dominance assumes and the degrees to which such forms may operate. The thesis is substantiated via comparison of two contemporary case studies: meat and pornography, which are examined as cultural phenomena (regimes of representations), and as industries. Green theory has seen meat as ‘speciesist’ (discriminating against Other animals on the basis of species membership), and radical feminism has largely understood pornography as a patriarchal construction. This thesis attempts to show the problems with such approaches, and argues the specific instances of oppression of meat and pornography involve the articulation of both patriarchy and anthroparchy, although these oppressive systems operate in different forms, to different degrees, and at different levels, depending on case and context

‘Now, where were we?’ The highs and lows of hunting data with a research pack

The boundaries of the social have been stretched by recent scholarship in sociological animal studies. Empirical work has begun to open up to the presence of the myriad other creatures that make up social worlds. Yet much of this research relies on standard practices and human-centred methods. This paper reflects on a piece of research characterised by such contradiction drawn from a project investigating everyday lives with canine companions via observation and interviewing. What was methodologically distinctive, was that the majority of interviews involved dogs being present and most were undertaking while walking with dogs. An ethnographic diary was also kept in one field site mapping events, interactions and routines of dogs, humans and others in the space of ‘dog walking’. How might non-humans intervene in data collection and be reflected in the data? What is lost and gained by researching (literally) in the field with a multi-species research pack

Analysing Change: Complex Rather than Dialectical?

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This article offers a discussion of dialectics from a complexity perspective. Dialectics is a term much utilized but infrequently defined. This article suggests that a spectrum of ideas exist concerning understandings of dialectics. We are particularly critical of Hegelian dialectics, which we see as anthropocentric and teleological. While Marxist approaches to dialectics, in the form of historical materialism, marked a break from the idealist elements of Hegelian dialectics, they retained traces of this approach. The article offers a partial discussion of essential elements of dialectics, which we consider to be the analysis of change, the centrality of contradiction, and the methodology of abstraction. Points of overlap with complexity thinking are highlighted, together with those points where complexity thinking and dialectical approaches diverge. We conclude with some suggestions as to how complexity thinking might contribute to a development of dialectical approaches

The posthuman way of war

Recent interventions from a ‘posthumanist’ or ‘new materialist’ perspective have highlighted the embedded character of human systems within a ‘panarchy’ of human and non-human systems. This article brings attention to a very particular element of materiality, one with a profound significance for issues of security – relations between human and non-human animals in instances of conflict. It is an indication of the deeply human-centred character of both international relations and security studies that almost none of the central texts mention the very significant roles that non-human animals have in the conduct of war. We argue that the character of war would have been radically different but for the forced participation by an enormous range of non-human animals. Even though, with the improvements in transportation over the last century, non-human animals are less evident in the context of the movement of people and equipment, they still play a significant number of roles in the contemporary war-machines of wealthy countries. Drawing on literature from critical animal studies, sociology and memoirs, this article discusses the enormous variety of roles that non-human animals have played in the conduct of war, and examines the character of human–non-human animal relations in times of war

Walking the dog: explorations and negotiations of species difference

Cudworth, E. Walking the dog: explorations and negotiations of species difference. PAN : philosophy activism nature. 2011; 8, 14-22

Feminist Animal Studies: Theories, Practices, Politics

Strands of feminist thinking have made an incisive critique of the ways in which gender and other intersecting differences and inequalities are constitutive of our destructive, exploitative and often violent relationships with non-human worlds. The essays in this collection take forward contemporary debates within feminism about our relationships with other animals and with each other. They showcase cutting edge work in the field of feminist animal studies by established scholars and newer voices in the field, working in cultural studies, criminology, geography, law, philosophy, politics, and sociology. Amongst the issues addressed in this collection are questions of animal being and animal rights, caring relations, the relationships between activism and theory and activism and trauma, interspecies sexual violence, tension in the animal defence movement around body politics, gender politics and professionalisation, different spaces of gender and animal relations from social media to sexology, safe spaces and sanctuaries, spaces of home – both in times of ‘business-as-usual’ and times of lockdown. In addition, important historical legacies in theory, empirical research and activism are acknowledged. The contributors add their collective voices to the many others arguing for profound change in the ways human being manage their relationships with the myriad other creatures with whom they share this planet; change for which revisioning relationships of gender and intersected inequalities will be imperative