L’animal de zoo

Cet article s’interroge sur ce qui caractérise les animaux sauvages montrés au public dans les zoos. Il semble que ces animaux peuvent être perçus comme des créatures mi-sauvages, mi-domestiques, et qu’ils partagent vraisemblablement la même identité : celle de l’animal de zoo. Partant du constat que leur mode de vie est, en apparence, artificiel, cet article propose également une réflexion sur leur statut d’acteurs auxquels incombe le rôle – certes limité – de représenter leurs congénères sauvages. Les zoos sont ainsi envisagés ici comme un décor de théâtre destiné à la production de discours et d’imaginaire sur le monde sauvage.Configuring the Zoo Animal: A Role Between the Wild and the Domesticated This article explores some issues relating to the nature of wild animals kept for public exhibition in zoos. It suggests that such animals can be interpreted as being creatures which are between the wild and the domesticated and that they perhaps share an identity – that of “zoo animal”. The article also considers how such animals, living apparently inauthentic lives in zoos, can be considered as actors performing the role (albeit limited and restricted) of representing their wild counterparts. Zoos are also considered here as theatrical settings for telling stories about natural worlds that exist beyond their boundaries

I Walk My Dog Because It Makes Me Happy: A Qualitative Study to Understand Why Dogs Motivate Walking and Improved Health

Dog walking is a popular everyday physical activity. Dog owners are generally more active than non-owners, but some rarely walk with their dog. The strength of the dog–owner relationship is known to be correlated with dog walking, and this qualitative study investigates why. Twenty-six interviews were combined with autoethnography of dog walking experiences. Dog walking was constructed as “for the dog”, however, owners represented their dog’s needs in a way which aligned with their own. Central to the construction of need was perceptions of dog personality and behaviour. Owners reported deriving positive outcomes from dog walking, most notably, feelings of “happiness”, but these were “contingent” on the perception that their dogs were enjoying the experience. Owner physical activity and social interaction were secondary bonuses but rarely motivating. Perceptions and beliefs of owners about dog walking were continually negotiated, depending on how the needs of the owner and dog were constructed at that time. Complex social interactions with the “significant other” of a pet can strongly motivate human health behaviour. Potential interventions to promote dog walking need to account for this complexity and the effect of the dog-owner relationship on owner mental wellbeing

El estudio de las relaciones humano-animales en la actual encrucijada ambiental

Las relaciones entre seres humanos y animales se han convertido en un tema clave, emergente y a tener muy en cuenta dentro del actual debate, tanto académico como social, preocupado por cuestiones ambientales. Pero a pesar de su importancia, los animales han permanecido relegados a un segundo plano analítico en los relatos etnográficos, fundamentalmente como elementos subsidiarios de las prácticas, los discursos y los simbolismos culturales. No obstante, las herramientas teóricas y metodológicas que posee la antropología pueden ayudar a la mejor comprensión de dichas relaciones y, con ello, a estimular el entendimiento acerca de cómo y por qué se construyen ciertas ecologías. Trayendo a los animales al centro de los estudios antropológicos y considerándolos actores implicados en la construcción de los mundos sociales, con este trabajo invitamos a reflexionar sobre la pertinencia de adoptar una mirada que vaya “más allá de lo humano” –pero relacionada e íntimamente conectada con lo humano- como una forma de comprender adecuada y empíricamente las relaciones socioecológicas particulares dentro del nuevo escenario global de crisis ambiental.The relationships between humans and animals have become a key, emerging issue to be considered within the current academic and social debate concerned with environmental matters. But despite their importance, animals have remained relegated to an analytical background in ethnographic accounts, mainly as subsidiary elements of cultural practices, discourses and symbolisms. Nevertheless, the theoretical and methodological tools that anthropology possesses can help to better understand these relationships and, in doing so, stimulate understanding of how and why certain ecologies are constructed. Bringing animals to the centre of anthropological studies and considering them as actors involved in the construction of human worlds, with this work we invite a reflexion on the relevance of adopting a view that goes “beyond the human” –but related, and intimately connected with, the human- as a way to properly and empirically understand the particular socioecological relationships within the new global scenario of environmental crisis

Good, quarrelsome, bad: animal agency and human-elephant interactions in the Western Ghats, India

Ecological breakdowns are posing many serious threats to the lives of both humans and wild animals in the spaces where those lives are shared. Today the intensification of conservation-related conflict is one of the main ecological challenges faced in the Western Ghats of India. This article explores some of the complex interactions between different groups of people, such as wealthy farmers, small-scale farmers, and Adivasi (indigenous) people, and Asian elephants and suggests potentially non-conflictual approaches to sharing spaces with these elephants. The study used a multispecies ethnographic approach as a primary research method and focused on detailed stories and anecdotes narrated by the inhabitants of the study area who had long experience of living with these elephants and who frequently encountered them. Based on insights offered by the stories and anecdotes, the article argues that the lives of elephants and those of people are deeply and intimately interconnected and co-constructed in the study area; such ‘naturecultures’ of elephants and humans constitute a complex whole. The stories highlight that most people in the study area know that elephants have agency and are intelligent, emotional beings, and can subvert human attempts to control them. According to local people, each individual elephant possesses a distinct personality: some are good, some are quarrelsome, and some are bad. People believe that, just as human beings do, elephants also perceive and respond to individual humans differently; such beliefs, and the stories created out of them, are non-anthropocentric in nature. Overall, this article explores how understanding, and treating seriously, the concepts, beliefs, and experiences of multidimensional elephant agency can be beneficial for envisioning possible new ways for human-elephant coexistence

Wolves in the Wolds: Late Capitalism, the English Eerie, and the Wyrd Case of ‘Old Stinker’ the Hull Werewolf

In this article, I depart from the earlier opinions of Emily Gerard, Sabine Baring-Gould, and others, who explained the disappearance of the werewolf in folklore as following the extinction of the wolf. I argue instead that British literature is distinctive in representing a history of werewolf sightings in places in Britain where there were once wolves. I draw on the idea of absence, manifestations of the English eerie, and the turbulence of England in the era of late capitalism to illuminate my analysis of the representation of contemporary werewolf sightingsPeer reviewe

Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Summary Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled analysis, we used a database of cardiometabolic risk factors collated by the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1985 to 2019 in mean height and mean BMI in 1-year age groups for ages 5–19 years. The model allowed for non-linear changes over time in mean height and mean BMI and for non-linear changes with age of children and adolescents, including periods of rapid growth during adolescence. Findings We pooled data from 2181 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in 65 million participants in 200 countries and territories. In 2019, we estimated a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations (the Netherlands, Montenegro, Estonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina for boys; and the Netherlands, Montenegro, Denmark, and Iceland for girls) and those with the shortest populations (Timor-Leste, Laos, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea for boys; and Guatemala, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Timor-Leste for girls). In the same year, the difference between the highest mean BMI (in Pacific island countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, The Bahamas, Chile, the USA, and New Zealand for both boys and girls and in South Africa for girls) and lowest mean BMI (in India, Bangladesh, Timor-Leste, Ethiopia, and Chad for boys and girls; and in Japan and Romania for girls) was approximately 9–10 kg/m2. In some countries, children aged 5 years started with healthier height or BMI than the global median and, in some cases, as healthy as the best performing countries, but they became progressively less healthy compared with their comparators as they grew older by not growing as tall (eg, boys in Austria and Barbados, and girls in Belgium and Puerto Rico) or gaining too much weight for their height (eg, girls and boys in Kuwait, Bahrain, Fiji, Jamaica, and Mexico; and girls in South Africa and New Zealand). In other countries, growing children overtook the height of their comparators (eg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Morocco, and Iran) or curbed their weight gain (eg, Italy, France, and Croatia) in late childhood and adolescence. When changes in both height and BMI were considered, girls in South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and some central Asian countries (eg, Armenia and Azerbaijan), and boys in central and western Europe (eg, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Montenegro) had the healthiest changes in anthropometric status over the past 3·5 decades because, compared with children and adolescents in other countries, they had a much larger gain in height than they did in BMI. The unhealthiest changes—gaining too little height, too much weight for their height compared with children in other countries, or both—occurred in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, New Zealand, and the USA for boys and girls; in Malaysia and some Pacific island nations for boys; and in Mexico for girls. Interpretation The height and BMI trajectories over age and time of school-aged children and adolescents are highly variable across countries, which indicates heterogeneous nutritional quality and lifelong health advantages and risks

Global variations in diabetes mellitus based on fasting glucose and haemogloblin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but may identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening had elevated FPG, HbA1c, or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardised proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed, and detected in survey screening, ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the agestandardised proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global gap in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance.peer-reviewe