I Am Someone Towards a Recognition of Nonhuman Personhood in Children’S Media and Education
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Bachelor’s Thesis Spring 2021 I Am Someone Towards a Recognition of Nonhuman Personhood in Children’s Media and Education Author: Emelie Elvin Supervisor: Åsa Ståhl, Anna-Karin Arvidsson Examiner: Mathilda Tham Term: VT21 Subject: Design + Change Level: Bachelor Course code: 2DI67E I Am Someone Towards a Recognition of Nonhuman Personhood in Children’s Media and Education Emelie Elvin Bachelor’s Thesis, Spring 2021 Photograph: James Gibson James Photograph: Contents 4 5 Abstract Useful Defnitions 6 10 15 Entry Point Carnism in Childhood Interspecies Explorations 6 To Avoid Misunderstandings 11 Indoctrination Through Media 15 Collaborating with a Sanctuary 8 Making the Invisible Visible 13 Material Research 15 Speciesism in Schools 8 Striking at the Root 14 The Peppa Pig Paradox 16 Activity: Meeting the Animals 17 19 22 26 Session 1: Shifting Session 2: Unpicking Session 3: Making Design as Activism Perspectives the Narrative the Connection 26 A Sharable Resource 17 Activity: Associations and 19 Activity: What is a Sanctuary? 22 Activity: If Ads Were Honest 27 Outcomes and Reflections Assumptions 21 Activity: We’re All Animals 25 Activity: I Am Someone Who... 29 A Culture of Empathy 18 Activity: Furry Features 31 33 References Acknowledgements Abstract From our earliest days of childhood, our exposure to certain species is confusing and contradictory, with animals like the beloved characters who fill our storybooks moulded into unrecognisable shapes and served up to us in deceptively happy packaging. With a recognition of this cognitive dissonance as a starting point, this report seeks to highlight the inconsistency of teaching children to love and respect animals whilst at the same time to accept the eating and usage of them. Whilst the topic of animal farming is finally beginning to be taken seriously in conversations about environmental sustainability, its ethical implications for both humans and nonhumans remain massively overlooked. My project aims to bring the conversation about animal rights to the forefront of our moral conside- rations with childhood education as an entry point. In collaboration with a primary school class (ages 9-11) and an animal sanctuary, I ran a three-part workshop designed to encourage interspecies thinking and provi- de a space for students to critically evaluate mainstream attitudes and assump- tions towards nonhuman animals and, by extension, to question current norms surrounding animal use and consumption. Key terms: personhood; childhood; veganism; carnism; nonhuman animals; education; media; cognitive dissonance; meat paradox; anthropocentrism; speciesism 4 Useful Defnitions speciesism noun The assumption of human superiority leading to the veganism exploitation of animals. noun Oxford Languages A philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude— as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of explo- itation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose. anthropocentric adjective The Vegan Society Considering humans and their existence as the most important and central fact in the universe. carnism Cambridge Dictionary noun The invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism is essentially the opposite of veganism. anthropomorphism noun Melanie Joy, Beyond Carnism The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. Oxford English Dictionary 5 Entry Point To Avoid Misunderstandings For the sake of readability, I regularly use the term “animals” I should state at the outset that no mainstream professional throughout this report in place of “nonhuman animals,” health organisation claims that it’s medically necessary to “other-than-human animals” or equivalent, with the full re- eat animal foods, with the American Dietetic Association, the cognition that humans are also animals and that excluding world’s largest body of food and nutrition professionals, sta- them from this category with our language only serves to fur- ting that vegans diets are “healthful, nutritionally adequate, ther perpetuate the notion that humans are separate from and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treat- and superior to other species. I’d also like to note my personal ment of certain diseases […] during all stages of the life cycle, dislike for classifying animals as “farm animals,” “zoo ani- including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adole- mals,” “pets” and so on. Unfortunately, for as long as our mo- scence, and for athletes” (Craig, W. J. and Mangles A. R., 2009, ral consideration of nonhuman animals remains insufficient pp. 1266-1282). My report doesn’t attempt to argue in favour of and underdeveloped, so will the language we have at our dis- a plant-based diet as nutritionally superior to one containing posal to talk about them. animal foods, although there is indeed plenty of literature out there to support such a claim. This project and the associated workshop focus solely on veganism as an ethical conviction, thus a recognition of the nutritional adequacy of vegan diets is sufficient. It’s also worth noting that contained within the definition of veganism referred to in this report (as coined by Donald Wat- son in 1944 and adapted by The Vegan Society) is the concept of “as far as is possible and practicable.” That is to say, the ve- gan philosophy is by no means unrealistic or utopian, despi- te often being mischaracterised as so. Living vegan simply means doing one’s best to abstain from actively harming animals, a concept that, in my experience, children seem to grasp more willingly and easily than most adults. In contrast to mainstream narratives, my observations suggest that a vegan mindset must be untaught, rather than the opposite. Illustration by author: “I Am Someone” 6 When I was four, we fostered a cousin’s dog for a summer. I kicked it. My father told me we don’t kick animals. When I was seven, I mourned the death of my goldfsh. I learned that my father had fushed him down the toilet. I told my father — in other, less civil words — we don’t fush ani- mals down the toilet. When I was nine, I had a babysitter who didn’t want to hurt anything. She put it just like that when I asked her why she wasn’t having chicken with my older brother and me: “I don’t want to hurt anything.” “Hurt anything?” I asked. “You know that chicken is chicken, right?” […] My brother and I looked at each other, our mouths full of hurt chickens, and had simultaneous how-in-the-world-could-I-have-never-thought-of-that-before-and-why-on-earth-didn’t-someone- tell-me? moments. I put down my fork. Foer, 2010, Eating Animals, p. 6 Making The Invisible Visible In principle, most people agree that it’s wrong to unnecessa- Those who become aware of systematic injustice begin to rily harm others. Is the problem, then, that we are taught to see examples of it everywhere. Not only is animal exploitation exclude nonhumans from the “others” worthy of such moral ubiquitous in the skins, coats, flesh and secretions we see on consideration? This would mean that animal advocacy is less clothing racks and supermarket shelves, it’s present in our about changing people’s minds and more about presenting a TV shows, our classrooms and our childhood storybooks, and perspective shift and the opportunity to, as philosopher Peter thus in our language, our beliefs and our identities. The cul- Singer would put it, expand our “moral circle” (Singer, 1981). ture of dominating, stealing from and consuming animals is My inspiration for this project was sparked by the question predicated on the notion that might makes right. As Mahatma of how, by recognising and rejecting carnism as soon as pos- Gandhi famously said, “The true measure of any society can sible, we can in fact prevent our “moral circle” from shrinking be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” What in the first place. kind of society can we expect to see when we justify the do- mination of the weak every time we sit down to a meal? How Striking at the Root can I identify an entry point here for a design project? At the 2017 Luxembourg Animal Rights Conference, Jens Tui- der for the Early Intervention Network describes the fight for My initial research led me to social psychologist Dr. Melanie animal liberation by analogy with an oil spill. In the event of Joy’s work on carnism. Carnism is a belief system essenti- an oil spill there are two courses of action: plug the source ally opposite to veganism, “organized around intensive and and clean up the mess. Tuider says that much of the efforts extensive (and unnecessary) violence toward animals” (Joy, of animal rights activists are dedicated the latter: cleaning up n.d.). Carnism is a system of oppression enabled by an unjust the mess caused by speciesism, carnism and anthropocent- exercise of power and many of the myths perpetuated about rism. Staging demonstrations and protests, doing outreach, our use and consumption of animals are expressed largely writing books and articles, holding conferences and talks, through what Joy calls the Three Ns of Justifcation: it’s normal, promoting alternatives to animal-products through vegan it’s natural, and it’s necessary. These myths have been, and bake sales and cruelty-free clothing; Tuider recognises that continue to be, used to justify the exploitation of humans there is “a lot of effort going into the second part of the job and nonhumans alike. Joy (n.d.) also emphasises the impor- of cleaning up the mess.” He then poses the question: “why tance of naming and defining this violent ideology if we have don’t we also try to plug the source?” As with any issue of jus- any hope in dismantling it: “The primary defence of carnism tice, we will be stuck cleaning up the mess indefinitely until is denial: if we deny there is a problem in the first place, we its underlying causes are addressed.