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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses Animal rights & human identity: a polemical quest for authenticity O'Neill, Pamela Susan How to cite: O'Neill, Pamela Susan (2000) Animal rights & human identity: a polemical quest for authenticity, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4474/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Pamela Susan O'Neill, University of Durham, Department of Anthropology. Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Anthropology Thesis Title: Animal Rights & Human Identity: A Polemical Quest for Authenticity Abstract This thesis examines the hypothesis that 'The conflict between animal advocates and animal users is far more than a matter of contrasting tastes or interests. Opposing world views, concepts of identity, ideas of community, are all at stake' (Jasper & Nelkin 1992, 7). It is based on a year of anthropological fieldwork with a group of animal rights activists. The aim of the study is to develop an understanding of how these activists construct and experience community and a personal and shared identity which reflects their own world view which is in contestation with that of mass society, whilst remaining part of mass society. Analysis of activists' life histories and their discourse and practice highlights the activists attempts to negotiate a discrete identity of themselves through a sense of community in their interactions with mass society, using animals to think themselves authentically human. This analysis contextualises Levi-Strauss's proposition that 'animals are good to think' within post-industrial Britain and links the activists's search for difference to an existential angst created by the conditions of contemporary life. Ever expanding communications in the post-industrial world present individuals with many opportunities for expressing identities of differing kinds in differing situations, but animal rights activists exhibit a need for structure and constancy in the formation of identity. They are reacting against a world where the constant and knowable appear redundant. The narratives and actions of the activists are investigated highlighting the areas of community, personal and shared identity and world view by analysis of their processes of rejection, reformation, construction and competency in their search for an authentic sense of identity predicated upon their own model of authentic humanness. It is contextualised . within a background of the continuing discourse over the condition of humanity beginning with the periods of industrialisation and urbanisation of modem Britain. CONTENTS Part I Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Aim and Structure 1 1.2 Theoretical Framework 5 1.3 Fieldwork 8 1.3.1 Placing The Study 8 1.3.2 Some Considerations of Method 11 1.3.3 Animal Rights Activists in 1995: Live Exports Opponents 29 Chapter 2 The Philosophical History & Traditions Involved in the Pursuit of the Rights of the Animal and the Search for the Authentically Human 32 2.1 Introduction 32 2.2 Thinking with Animals in Industrial Britain 33 2.3 Conceptualizing Humanity in History 35 2.4 The Philosophical Debate 37 2.4.1 The Traditional Christian World View 38 2.4.2 The Enlightenment & Onwards With the Emergence of Diverse World Views 40 2.4.3 Human'ity - Morally Moulded By Society? 43 2.4.4 Humanity - 'Naturally' Moral? 46 2.4.5 The Appearance of the Contemporary Animal Rights Debate 48 2.4.6 The Contemporary Debate 51 2.4.7 Conclusion 54 Chapter 3 Cultural Warfare 56 3.1 Introduction 56 3.2 The Rise of the Pensee Bourgeoises 56 3.2.1 Classification 60 3.2.2 Pet Keeping 65 3.2.3 The Place of Legislation in Defining the Authentically Human 68 3.2.4 Compassion 72 3.2.5 Revolution and the Threat of Vegetables 76 3.3 Conclusion 86 Chapter 4 Contemporary Cultural Battles 89 4.1 Introduction 89 4.2 The Relevance of the Past to the Present 89 4.2.1 The Great and Little Tradition 94 4.3 The Contemporary Animal Rights Movement 96 4.3.1 The Birth of a Movement 96 4.4 Conclusion 97 Part II The Ethnographic Study Chapter 5 Animal Rights As Community 5.1 Introduction 106 5.1.2 Constructs of Community 107 5.1.3 Defining The Other 113 5.2 Expressing and Experiencing Community 115 5.3. Animal Rights Activists in 1995: Live Exports Opponents 116 Box 5.1 132 5.3.1 The Campaign As An Expression of Community 133 5.3.2 Social Structure 134 5.3.3 The Vigil As A Ritualistic Expression of a Symbolically Bounded Community 139 5.3.4 The Ritual Process 141 5.3.5 Communitas 142 5.3.6 The Vigil as Ritual 143 5.4 Conclusion 150 Chapter 6 The Project of the Self: Becoming An Animal Rights Activist - New Beginnings & Discard In The Construction of Identity 6.1 Introduction 152 6.2 Entering The Community 162 6.3 Seeking Belongingness in Practices of Immersion and Discard 167 6.3.1 Who Moi? 169 6.4 The Body As A Boundary of Negotiation 173 6.4.1 Pollution Avoidance 175 6.4.2 Inner Body Pollution Avoidance 176 6.4.3 Outer Body Pollution Avoidance 179 6.4.4 Pollution of the Immediate Environment 180 6.5 Conclusion 181 Chapter 7 Consumption, Construction & Competence (It"s Getting To Be A Habit) 183 7.1 Introduction 183 7.2 Consuming Culture 184 7.3 Becoming Authentically Human 187 7.4 Conclusion 206 Chapter 8 Conclusion 207 Appendix 1: Profile of Core Group 211 Appendix 2: Guidelines Issued With Autobiography Notebooks 213 Appendix 3: By-Products of a Cow 214 Bibliography: 215 1 INTRODUCTION The conflict between animal advocates and animal users is far more than a matter of contrasting tastes or interests. Opposing world views, concepts of identity, ideas of community, are all at stake (Jasper & Nelkin 1992, 7). Aim And Structure This thesis is an exploration of the above statement by sociologists Jasper and Nelkin, which they proposed after their examination of the growth of the Animal Rights Movement in America; The animal rights crusade: The growth of a moral protest (1992). Jasper and Nelkin's suggestion, whilst informed by close examination of historical and Contemporary literature, used little empirical support provided by animal rights activists themselves. The empirical evidence they did use was a survey they conducted of protestors at two demonstrations in support of animal rights for World Laboratory Animal Day in 1988 at New York University and at Berkeley (Jasper & Nelkin 1992, 38, 67). I felt it would be useful to test their hypothesis with reference to contemporary British animal rights activists by undertaking a more detailed qualitative study within an anthropological framework. Traditionally anthropological analyses have concentrated on how members of small scale societies use animals to think themselves human in opposition to 'other animals' and human 'others', but very little attention has been given to the meaning of animals in contemporary British thought in the structuring of human identity. This thesis will explore how a group of contemporary Animal Rights Activists uses animals to think, create and construct an identity based on its own model of what I will call authentic humanness through Community; and how a culture is in turn produced through the Community's interaction with 'others', resulting from their own creations and constructions of 'difference'. The thesis is for the main part an exploration of animal rights discourse which will be explored partially through the examination of the activists behaviour. The study is based on research conducted with Animal Rights activists at a protest site in Yorkshire where they conducted a weekly 'vigil' for calves being exported for the veal trade. In addition to attendance at this site over the Winter of 1995 and Spring of 1996, the research is based on autobiographical accounts of involvement in activism and my attendance at other protest sites where I conducted many semi-structured interviews or 'guided conversations' and carried out the chief activity of the anthropologist, that of 'hanging about'. For the purpose of clarity the thesis is divided into two sections, Parts I and II. This section, Part I, consists of an introduction to the study and an overview of the theoretical framework and methodology, it then moves on to an examination of the historical and philosophical background to the growth of the animal protection movement as a whole, Part II will cover the ethnographic study. The theoretical framework I propose draws on issues from the study of anthropology about how human beings think themselves human using animals to think. Chapter 2 is a description of the philosophical processes which contributed to the development of the animal protection movement and the definition of the authentically Human in different periods in recent British history. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the social processes which 2 produced the philosophising and illustrates the roots of the contemporary movement and a new model of the authentically human.
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