Race, Place, and the Bounds of Humanity1

Abstract

The idea of a human-animal divide as reflective of both differences in kind and in evolutionary progress, has retained its power to produce and maintain racial and other forms of cultural difference. During the colonial period, representations of similarity were used to link subaltern groups to animals and thereby racialize and dehumanize them. In the postcolonial present, however, animal practices of subdominant groups are typically used for this purpose. Using data on cultural conflicts surrounding animal practices collected from media sources, we show that such practices have become a key aspect of the human-animal boundary due to the radically changing time-space relations of postmodernity. Drawing on Spivak's notion of "wild practice, " we propose a radical democracy that includes animals as well as subaltern peoples, and argue for the rejection of dehumanization as a basis for cultural critique, given its role in perpetuating racialization and violence toward both human and non-human animals.

Death in the wrong place? Emotional geographies of the UK 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic

“…Since the mid-1990s, human geography has been concerned with spatial variations in humananimal relations (Holloway, 2001;Philo and Wolch, 1998); with exploring the ways particular categories like 'livestock', 'domestic', 'nature' and indeed 'human' and 'animal' are socially constructed (Harrison and Burgess, 1994;Whatmore, 1999; see also Quinn, 1993;Shepard, 1996) and thus with relationships between human agency, animal agency and landscape. Philo and Wolch (1998) go so far as to suggest that this emphasis on the socio-spatial place of animals and the coexistence of and social interaction between, humans and animals, reflects a new cultural, 'animal geography' (see also Philo and Wilbert, 2000;Elder et al, 1998;Mullin, 1999). Wolch and Emel (1998) contend that culturally orientated studies of animal-human relationships highlight complex and contradictory processes of, on the one hand, consumers distancing themselves from animals as food-people eat 'meat' not 'animals'-hence an artificial split between the conceptual and the material-and the central role of animals in the structuring of society and hence to formations of human identities.…”

The Tracks of My Tears

“…Indeed, Jim Gorant (2010: 10), a Sports Illustrated writer who authored a book about Vick's dogs, asserts that, "while handsome, [Vick] could be fairly described as almost canine." While the practice of racialization by animalization has a long history, Vick's case reveals how pit bulls in particular are increasingly involved in contemporary productions of black masculinities (see Elder, Wolch, and Emel 1998).…”

Horse Maiming in the English Countryside: Moral Panic, Human Deviance, and the Social Construction of Victimhood

“…In the specific cultural context of animals and racialization, for example, Elder, Wolch, and Emel (1998) have argued that "animals and their bodies appear to be one site of struggle over the protection of national identity and the production of cultural difference" (p. 184). Indeed, the whys, hows, and whens of the process of victimhood construction occupy an often hotly contested cultural landscape at the nexus of struggles that may involve kaleidoscopic issues of class, gender, race, and age.…”