Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Regarding Animals
ISBN: 9781439903889
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Temple University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Human -- animal relationships; Animals -- Social aspects;

Ethnographers Arluke and Sanders, both professors of sociology, pose the question, What does the contradictory way society treats animals say about the individuals in the society itself? The authors explore the conflicting attitudes of people who work in animal shelters and primate labs and, in the most interesting section of the book, investigate the contradictions between treatment of humans and treatment of animals by the Nazis during WWII. Humans simultaneously treat animals with great affection and abuse, thereby demonstrating how they create and dissolve boundaries between themselves and animals. It is clearly not the authors' objective to preach or judge, but rather to observe the socially constructed view of animals that ultimately sheds a brilliant light on the humans who are doing the constructing. We see how people compartmentalize themselves and differentiate themselves from animals to express power, control and superiority. Although revealing and thought-provoking anecdotes told to or witnessed by the ethnographers are mixed in with the dense sociological analysis, it seems unlikely that this study will reach beyond a college classroom and find its way into the hands of the average reader. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Arnold Arluke is Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University and a Research Associate at the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine. He is an Associate Editor of Society and Animals and the author of The Making of Rehabilitation: A Political Economy of Medical Specialization with Glenn Gritzer and Gossip: The Inside Scoop with Jack Levin.