The Social Constructionist Challenge to Primacy Identity and the Emancipation of Oppressed Groups: Human Primacy Identity Politics and the Human/'Animal' Dualism

In a recent issue of this journal Mike Homfray asserted that social constructionism challenges emancipatory politics based in essential conceptualisations of identity. Thus for Homfray the concept of identity as associated with the pre-deconstructed subject is central for the emancipatory goal of oppressed groups like the lesbian and gay movements. In this paper I offer a distinction between radical identity politics that seeks to liberate oppressed groups, and what I have called primacy identity politics in which primacy identity is used to preserve the subjugation of those who are oppressed. In so doing I put forward a challenge to Homfray\'s somewhat wholesale rejection of the capacity for a critique of identity to work for emancipatory politics by focussing on primacy identity politics rather than on radical identity politics. In making an argument for the deconstruction of identities for emancipatory purposes I refer to my work on the human oppression of nonhuman animals. In this work I turn my attention away from those who are oppressed to the oppressors because this transfer of attention shows how useful the deconstruction of identity could be for the emancipation of oppressed groups. My examination of discourses used by the pro nonhuman animal experimentation lobby group Pro-Test shows how primacy identity politics can effectively be challenged by a social constructionist critique of essential identities and thus, contra Homfrey, I conclude that the deconstruction of identities can strengthen emancipatory causes.Human, Identity Politics, Nonhuman, Oppressed, Performative, Primacy, Radical, Social Construction

An insufferable business : ethics, nonhuman animals and biomedical experiments

Each year millions of nonhuman animals suffer in biomedical research for human health benefits. Clinical ethics demand that nonhuman animals are used in the development of pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Nonhuman animals are also used for fundamental biomedical research. Biomedical research that uses nonhuman animals is big business. This paper explores how such research generates profits and gains for those associated with the industry. Research establishments, scientists and other professionals who work in laboratories, companies that supply nonhuman animal subjects and equipment for the research, and corporations that sell the resulting products are among those that benefit financially. Clinical ethical partiality to human health benefits enables these beneficiaries to claim that such research is unquestionably ethical because it conforms to required clinical ethical codes. The paper argues that even this anthropocentric form of ethics is compromised by the pervasiveness of profit-making industry. Because nonhuman animal-based biomedical research is considered to have a more ethical purpose than other forms of experiments that use nonhuman animal subjects the focus on biomedical ethics, that screens out the profits made, enables the paper to conclude with a challenge to the assumption about the ethical legitimacy of the use of nonhuman animal experiments across the board

What have animals to do with social work? : a sociological reflection on species and social work : Review essay of "Animals in social work : why and how they matter" by Thomas Ryan

AbstractThe contributors to Thomas Ryan’s Animals in Social Work offer a challenge to anthropocentrism in social work theory and practice. Because this challenge resonates with the “zoological connection” that confronts anthropocentric sociology, this review article offers a sociological examination of key points raised. In focusing on conceptualizations of the human animal binary, personhood and selfhood, property, ethics, and welfare, this article concludes that nonhuman animals ought to matter to social work. Ryan is right: One day social workers will be incredulous that social work could have overlooked nonhuman animals for so long. Sociologists will be similarly incredulous about anthropocentric sociology.</jats:p

Risk, Human Health, and the Oppression of Nonhuman Animals: The Development of Transgenic Nonhuman Animals for Human Use.

In May 2009, the journal Nature published an article by Erika Sasaki et al.outlining a research development in biomedical science that, the authors argue, will provide new possibilities for using nonhuman primates in experiments for human health benefits. The authors claim that their research offers the potential for the reproduction of transgenic marmosets who, because of their “close genetic relations with humans” (523), might be extremely useful in advances designed to reduce the risks from a range of human health hazards. By conducting a critical analysis of the article, I will explore moral questions connected with experiments on nonhuman animals, in order to reflect upon assumptions central to claims about the progress that such nonhuman animal experiments are said to represent. My discussion is rooted in sociological theorizing about risk because, as Sasaki and her colleagues’ work demonstrates, biogenetics is being used to amplify risks to nonhuman animal health for the purpose of reducing risks to human health. Sociological theory allows us to examine assumptions about distinctions between humans and nonhuman animals, and among nonhuman animals, that intensify the commodification of nonhuman animals. Critical discourse analysis allows us to unveil assumptions made by Sasaki et al. that serve a logic of scientific advancement driven by human preoccupation with human benefits at the expense of nonhuman animals, which, I conclude, conflicts with human moral progress.\ud \ud My aims are reflected in the structure of the paper. The opening section explores risk and human health with a focus on the ways in which humans have sought, via biomedical research, to reduce human risks from health hazards. This is followed by consideration of how experiments using nonhuman animals have been utilized in the quest to diminish human health risks. This leads me to Sasaki et al.’s (2009) article. By using a critical discourse analytical approach, I reflect upon notions of “progress” as rooted in the aspiration to transfer to nonhuman animals a range of health hazards that we seek to eliminate in the human. I conclude that interfering with the genetics of nonhuman animals with the aim of engendering in them a predisposition to develop health hazards that we want to eliminate in humans represents human degeneration rather than progress

Multi-species sociology of the body

The human body has become a central focus in sociology. Such work has centred largely on the human body and its significance in social contexts. This article draws on sociological understandings of human embodiment, especially the idea of the ‘body as a project’, to facilitate a multi-species understanding of bodies and their entanglements. Conceptualising the body as a project has provided sociological insights into the scientific and technological innovations that are designed to improve health and delay death. Nonhuman animals are entangled in these efforts, though their presence is often occluded. By examining notions of body masks, body regimes and body options, which are well established in sociological thinking about the body, this article seeks to prompt consideration of how to utilise theories of the body to examine human–nonhuman animal entanglements in order to establish a multi-species sociology of the body

Nonhuman animal suffering : critical pedagogy and practical animal ethics

Each year millions of nonhuman animals are exposed to suffering in universities as they are routinely (ab)used in teaching and research in the natural sciences. Drawing on the work of Giroux and Derrida, we make the case for a critical pedagogy of nonhuman animal suffering. We discuss critical pedagogy as an underrepresented form of teaching in universities, consider suffering as a concept, and explore the pedagogy of suffering. The discussion focuses on the use of nonhuman animal subjects in universities, in particular in teaching, scientific research, and associated experiments. We conclude that a critical pedagogy of nonhuman animal suffering has the capacity to contribute to the establishment of a practical animal ethics conducive to the constitution of a radically different form of social life able to promote a more just and non-speciesist future in which nonhuman animals are not used as resources in scientific research in universities

Researching women and pensions : empowerment and sharing 'expert' knowledge

This paper examines an important methodological issue arising in my research on women and pensions. It discusses my experiences of being considered an expert in the field of pensions in interviews with 45 women who often sought advice on financial planning for retirement, whether pensions already chosen would provide the best financial rewards and, if not, the best pension option to take in the light of pension policy changes in the late 1980s. The paper does not present a stage-by-stage account of my study but is a reflexive account of the research process, focusing on issues concerning empowerment and information sharing. The discussion leads me to conclude that although the researcher is often in a position to provide essential information in areas of high complexity, ethical considerations about providing faulty information and the limits of the positive effects that information sharing might achieve must also be acknowledged