I Am Someone Towards a Recognition of Nonhuman Personhood in Children’S Media and Education

Home , Carnism, James Aspey, Melanie Joy, Peppa Pig, Poultry farming, Speciesism

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 provide a space for students to critically evaluate mainstream attitudes and assumptions 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 exploitation 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 vegan philosophy is by no means unrealistic or utopian, despite 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 animals 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. Tuider quotes Henry Da- don’t have to do anything about it. Denial is expressed largely vid Thoreau: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of through invisibility, and the main way carnism remains invi- evil to one who is striking at the root” (Thoreau, 1854). Where sible is by remaining unnamed; if we don’t name it, we can’t do we see speciesism taking root and how can design practi- question it.” ces aid in intervening at this level?

8 “The harmful attitudes and behaviours of adults don’t just fall out of the sky. They are the product of early socialisation [in] childhood [and] adolescence” (Tuider, 2017).

Working with Children To quote Gandhi once more, “If we are to reach real peace in this world […] we shall have to begin with children.” The education of children underpins all other systems, so I knew in- During our first meeting, Sophie and I mapped out ideas for tentionally and effectively addressing the schooling system the workshop content and discussed the involvement of the and its approach to animal rights would be a powerful point children from both an ethical and pedagogical point of view. of intervention. Working with children also comes with its Rather than simply providing answers, it was important to own unique challenges and responsibilities, so I put empha- me that the workshop posed thoughtful questions and was sis on working in close collaboration with experienced edu- a space of non-judgement and honest dialogue. I drew inspi- cators right from the start. Weston Mill Community Primary ration from Toronto-based organisation Mammalian Diving Academy became my first collaborator, a school based in the Reflex, who claim on their website that their workshop-ba- South West of England. I was fortunate to get the chance to sed projects are run not only for but by children, driven by the collaborate with Sophie, the teacher to a class of nine- to elev- belief that youngsters should be given the opportunity to en-year-olds, who was very open and receptive to my animal “prove themselves creative leaders” and “capable and respon- rights motivations and willing to work alongside me to de- sible citizens.” They also state that all their “collaborations velop my loose proposal into a full workshop. I was allocated with children and young people have, at one level or another, three 45-minute sessions between 19-20 April 2021 to run the the theme of the full recognition of children as rights-hol- workshop with the class. ders who have the right to participate in all matters affecting them” (Mammalian Diving Reflex, n.d.). The title of my project, I Am Someone, came to encompass not only the recognition of nonhuman personhood, but also the autonomy of children and their right to informed choices.

9 Carnism in Childhood

Elmo and Zoe are in a race against the clock to fnd healthy foods of diferent colours. Up next: white! We hear several squirts as Gladys gleefully jigs her They rush over to Gina as she unwraps her sand- head back and forth, dancing along to the beat wich for lunch. Too bad—her bread is brown! made by liquid hitting glass and the jangle of the bell around her neck. After a few seconds the farmer “We need healthy white food!” wails Zoe. reappears holding a full glass of milk. “Here you go,” he says, “straight from the cow!” She barely fnishes her sentence before we hear the clinkety-clank of bells and the clippety-clop of hoo- “Milk! Milk! Wow!” Elmo and Zoe chant, excitedly. ves as a green-skinned Muppet farmer approaches with his Muppet-cow in tow. “Did I mention that I’m proud to be a cow?” Gla- dys adds with a smile. “Not everyone can make food “Did I hear ya say white food, little monsters?” the that’s chock full of vitamin D.” farmer asks enthusiastically. “Well, I’ve got some right here,” he exclaims as he bends down and reaches for the cow’s udders. “All right Gladys, it’s Evans, Sesame Street, 2005 milkin’ time!”

10 Indoctrination Through Media In order to effectively design a workshop tackling the main- A study (Stewart and Cole, 2018) investigating children’s cul- stream speciesist mindset, I had to have a clear picture of turally-made relationships with nonhumans analysed the what media children are regularly exposed to and how it influ- representation of animal characters in UK children’s TV shows ences the way they view animals. To the child watching this across five days programming during Summer 2020. A total episode of Sesame Street (Evans, 2005), cows are great pals of 315 programmes and 66.25 hours of broadcasting were stu- with farmers and their milk is gifted willingly and eagerly as a died. Approximately four in every ten shows (41.7%) featured healthy snack for humans. Of course, as adults we may know animals as title or lead characters, with a further ten per cent that cow’s milk does not in fact contain vitamin D unless it’s including more minor animal characters or animal-related fortified with it. We may come to learn that behind every glass content, accounting for just over half overall (Figure 1). of milk is a “dairy cow” who was killed after suffering a life of imprisonment, mutilation, repeated forcible impregnation Figure 1: Animal characters in UK children’s TV shows and the theft of her calves. We may even discover that among (Stewart and Cole, 2018). the sponsors of Sesame Street are the ironically named Good Egg Project and Earth’s Best, the latter profiting directly off pro- motion of the dairy industry through their cow’s milk-based infant formula. But by the time we are exposed to these reali- ties, will it make a difference, or will the false narrative we’ve been (quite literally) fed about happy farms with happy animals be too deep-rooted? This is a strong example of the kind of narrative my design work attempts to counter and, unfortunately, this speciesist messaging isn’t limited to the likes of Sesame Street.

11 Anthropomorphism was found to be commonplace in young “Children receive confusing messa- children’s TV, with human-like qualities afforded to main ges pre-empting the paradoxes li- animal characters, primarily through dress, speech and ani- kely in later life: animals are lovely, mation. Other characters were presented as “thingiﬁed” ver- our friends, our peers; and animals sions of their species and all animal representations were are food, entertainment, vermin. TV stereotypical in some way: “children’s affective imaginations contributes to normalising the ex- are directed toward representations and away from the real ploitation of nonhuman animals for victims” (Stewart and Cole, 2018, p. 109). Despite the many human gain by avoiding the reality of millions of animals killed for food alone in the UK every year, much animal life, suggesting through not a single show addressed this. Not only may this inac- anthropomorphic depiction that ani- curate representation contribute to animal exploitation—the mals are happy, and reducing the li- characters’ real-life counterparts and their real-life suffering kelihood of children making connec- rendered invisible—it could be considered exploitation of tions between how they feel and what the children in the audience, deprived of their autonomy as they do. As such, these programmes they’re simultaneously fed a message of loving animals and are a vital indicator of normative be- fed parts of their bodies. Lynda M. Korimboccus references lief systems that require deconstruc- this study in her poster presentation The ‘Peppa Pig Paradox’ tion before progress for animals can and Other Mixed Media Messaging and summarises it as follows: be made” (Korrimboccus, 2021).

12 Material Research As part of my early material research, I asked a group of parents of young children to look out for any instances of animals in their children’s books, toys and TV shows (Figure 2). All the parents reported that this was an easy task, ﬁnding animals in “most” of their children’s media. In line with the study by Stewart and Cole (2018), many of the animal portrayals were anthropomorphic in nature. Others were more obviously exploitative; a toy marine park set complete with trainer, hoops and little plastic seals to jump through them as just one example. One mum told me that she had decided to store away a whole array of books she had been gifted due to her discomfort with their explicit speciesist messaging. Almost all representations of “farm animals” took the absurd shape of idyllic farmyards where the animals roam freely, interacting happily with each other and the friendly farmers. An article titled The Farm Myth: Fantasy Farms, Factory Farming (Sleigh, 2019), expla- ins how the “farm myth” is created and sustained through children’s books: “1. Romanticization: The books romanticize the reality of farms in a way that is not accurate Figure 2: Material research: Speciesism in children’s media. about the lives of farmed animals. This rosy view of farms can outlast childhood into adulthood, leaving the legacy exploitable by adverti- sements for animal products. 2. Absence: The absence of suffering or death in the books constitutes deceit by omission.

3. Myth: The ways that inaccuracies are presented as fact, and how this misrepresentation can seamlessly develop into outright lies” (Sleigh, 2019).

The impact these stories have on children’s minds is long-lasting and contributes to a cultural myth that acts as one of many barriers to an anti-speciesist world. Through my design practice, I aim to dismantle this myth and work towards replacing it with an honest narrative that cultivates an understanding of and respect for nonhuman animals.

13 Figure 3: Peppa Pig food art made with pig fesh.

The Peppa Pig Paradox Of all the instances of “farm animals” in my material research, the only exception I found to the “farm myth” was Peppa Pig. Peppa is a cartoon pig who features as the title character in a children’s animated TV series. Since Peppa Pig’s creation in the UK, the series has been translated into 40 languages and aired in 180 countries worldwide, and beyond its 329 episodes (“Peppa Pig,” 2021) the brand now includes books, toys, clothing, videogames, food items, party supplies, live theatre shows and even a theme park. All the parents from whom I collected material said their children had watched the cartoon and had at least one Peppa Pig themed item at home.

Yet, despite Peppa being a household name, the vast majority of her fans frequently dine on the flesh of pigs. In her essay Pig-Ignorance: The Peppa Pig Paradox, Korimboccus talks about her experience attending Peppa Pig Live! with her kids at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. Alongside the over-priced novel- In his book Animals on Television, Brett Mills (2017) proposes ties at the kiosk, the theatre was selling snack boxes filled that due to the anthropomorphic nature of Peppa Pig, viewers with ham sandwiches, and Korimboccus wondered how many need make no connection other than to themselves. Even the members of the Peppa-loving audience would be sitting in Pig family’s few remaining pig-like qualities, such as their the stalls munching on slices of pig. Similarly, at the Peppa curly pink tails and love of rolling in muddy puddles, don’t re- Pig First Cinema Experience later that year, she witnessed many present reality for the vast majority of farmed pigs who have children ordering pig-filled hot dogs from the foyer’s food their tails docked as infants (D’Eath et al. 2016) and spend stand (Korimboccus, 2020, p. 4). Another striking example of their entire life confined indoors (CPRE, 2019, p. 3). This subtle this kind of dissociation thoughtlessly pushed onto children implication that Peppa and her family should not be consi- can be seen in the disturbing trend of creating Peppa food art dered the same as “food pigs” only serves to widen the gap out of the body parts of real pigs (Figure 3). between the viewer’s compassion for animals and the ones that end up on their plate. Introducing the students in my workshop to real animals and their real lived experiences was one of my attempts at closing this gap.

14 Interspecies Explorations

Collaborating with a Sanctuary Getting an animal sanctuary on board really enriched the animals to be sent to slaughter once their “cuteness factor” workshop experience. After posting my proposal on several declines to the more explicit “farming” trips which aim to social media groups, I was touched to see how many sanctu- normalise the eating of animals and their body parts. UK su- aries reached out to me, eager to collaborate and contribute permarket Tesco even ran a programme for kids called Farm to my project. Witnessing the kind of community than can be to Fork which entailed a visit to a local store wearing high-vis brought together around a shared passion was very motiva- vests emblazoned with “I’m learning where my food comes ting and the seed of a “workshop as a sharable resource” was from” (Figure 4), further engraining the notion that animals sewn (but more on that later!). Pear Tree Farm Animal Sanctu- are “food.” These trips are framed as educational, but they ary became my second collaborator, and I began by arranging ultimately make children more willing to accept the utility of a meeting with Bex who told me all about their sanctuary, animals for human gain. from its early beginnings and their ethos behind starting it, to the various animals’ personalities and their experience with children visiting on open days. I would’ve loved to have Figure 4: A child on a “Farm to Fork” trip run by Tesco, 2016. been able to run a workshop on site, giving the students the chance to meet and connect with the animals in person. Due to the pandemic, the collaboration had to happen digitally, but the upside to this was that the workshop was able to go ahead with fewer logistics to consider (and, seeing as the school, the sanctuary and I were situated in different cities and countries, this may have in fact been the thing that made this particular collaboration possible!).

Speciesism in Schools The goal with bringing a school and a sanctuary together was to give children an opportunity to meet real animals in a non-exploitative context. School curricula activities involving animals nearly always include some aspect of exploitation, from seemingly benign petting zoos where it’s common for

15 Activity: Meeting the Animals Bex selected six animals from the sanctuary to feature in the workshop (Figure 5), giving the students a chance to get to know each of them on a more personal level. Due to technical difficulties, we weren’t able to do the “virtual sanctuary tour” we had originally planned, so instead we created a short film of the sanctuary, introducing the animals and their unique personalities. The film was truly a collaborative effort, with Bex filming the clips, the animals starring in them, me editing them together and Simon, a compo- ser, jumping on board to score a piece of music for the film that beautifully captured the spirit of each animal. The class then had a 30-minute video call with Bex in which they learnt about the animals’ difficult lives before arriving at the sanctuary. Done in a con- versational format, the students were able to ask plenty of questions, and it was great having someone that lives and works in such close proximity to animals there to answer them with such honesty, integrity and sensitivity.

Figure 5: The nonhuman participants. From left to right: Luca, Florence, Ambrose, Pecky, Prince and Peppa.

16 Session 1: Shifting Perspectives

Activity: Associations and Assumptions Figure 6: “Associations and Assumptions” activity slides. In his article titled Humans, Animals, and Metaphors, Andrew Goat- ly points out how anthropocentrism drives negative and pejorative animal stereotypes, many “human is animal” metaphors employed as insults in our everyday language allowing reinforcement of human superiority (Goatly, 2006, p. 25). Thinking back to Peppa Pig, we see this embodied in the character of Daddy Pig who is stubborn (“pig-headed”), overweight (“fat pig”) and loves eating (“pigging out”) (Korimboccus, 2020, p. 5). Recognising that many of these biases and assumptions about animals are implicit, I decided to include an activity that got students actively thinking about their current views and knowledge of certain animals and voicing them as a class. I chose to place this activity early on in the workshop so it could serve as an an- choring point to which the students could reﬂect back, allowing them to recognise if they had learnt something new or changed their mind about anything by the end of the session.

Students were directed to look at the screen and call out their associations with the words that popped up. All the words could potentially be associated with both the categories “animals” and “food” (e.g., fish, chicken, egg, milk). Next, images appeared alongside each word; various breastfeeding mammals accompanying “milk,” for example, or different birds and reptiles hatching from eggs, intentionally not grouping animals by their utility to humans and thereby shifting the perspective away from commodification (Figure 6). I made sure to include animals that aren’t typically considered “cute,” such as alliga- tors and various species of fish—I don’t want to accidentally create a group of “cutetarians” (JPKL, 2008), after all.

17 Activity: Furry Features “Make it a priority to expose children to people who make a difference in the world” (Masterson and Kersey, 2013). I read this in an article titled Connecting Children to Kindness: Encouraging a Culture of Empathy, which dis- cusses different strategies to “give children opportunities to demonstrate empathy and practice kindness” by inviting them to “reorient their own perspectives and to self-reﬂect” (Masterson and Kersey, 2013). One of these strategies is role-play, reinforcing the understanding of emotions, supporting multiple perspectives, and building empathy and sensitivity (Ashiabi, 2007). Although the article focuses on interhuman relationships, I don’t see why this approach couldn’t just as effectively be applied to interspecies relationships too.

From a pedagogical perspective, we wanted to include a creative, practical activity to keep the students en- gaged and excited. We decided on mask-making, the outcomes of which could be utilised as a role-play ele- ment in subsequent activities. The students began by choosing a badge at random which assigned them an “animal team” (Figure 7), determining what type of mask or “features” they’d create. I was eager to allow each student to decide for themselves which team they’d like to join based on the animal they felt they most connected with, but after a conversation with Sophie we agreed that doing so may result in most students choosing the cute little lamb, for instance—and, once again, we wanted to be careful not to send the message that empathy should be based on cute-factor! Teams being evenly distributed also meant more opportunities for knowledge-sharing amongst the class.

As the students were crafting, they were encouraged to think about the following question: Just because someone has different features to you—if they are covered in feathers or fur—does that make them any less deserving of kindness and respect?

Figure 7: Animal badge designs.

18 Session 2: Unpicking the Narrative

Activity: What is a Sanctuary? Don’t animal farms often advertise themselves like sanctuaries? Running through my workshop plan with a group of peers, this question stopped me in my tracks. It’s true—labels such as “free-range” and “hu- mane” successfully fool consumers into Figure 8: An organic, free-range egg farm in Italy, 2015. thinking they are making more ethical choi- Photographer: Stefano Belacchi (We Animals Media). ces, despite these terms usually having no legal deﬁnition and thus meaning little to nothing for the animals involved (Meadow and Ulibarri, 2016) (Figure 8). This kind of ethics-washing is particularly rampant in products targeted at children; we need think no further than the popular McDonald’s “Happy Meal,” containing the chopped-up body parts of animals whose short lives were anything but. In order to counter the “it’s just a few corrupt farms” narrative that is all too common amongst those attemp- ting to defend their own animal consumption, I had to make it clear that there is no kind way to exploit someone, no “right way” to do the wrong thing.

19 Figure 9: “What is a Sanctuary?” activity sheet.

In dialogue with Sophie and Bex, I designed an activity sheet on which the faces of the six sanctuary animals were printed alongside speech bubbles containing statements about their lives (Figure 9). The class were prompted to think back to what they had learnt during their conversation with Bex to help them decide which statements were true (e.g., I get to stay with my mum), and which were false (e.g., The humans take my eggs away and eat them). As a pandemic-pre- caution, it was one activity sheet per person, but the students were encouraged to discuss the answers together and share their thoughts. Wearing the “animal features” they had created previously, part two of this activity incorporated an aspect of role-play as students put themselves in the animal’s position and read out their statements, discussing in pairs any thoughts and emotions they were feeling.

20 “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (Bentham, 1789).

Activity: We’re All Animals Human animals often view themselves as separate and superior to For this activity, students began by ta- nonhuman animals, the exploitation of the latter often justified by re- king out their individual whiteboards and ference to their perceived dissimilarity to humans, as if humanness is drawing two large overlapping circles in the standard one’s moral worth ought to be measured by. I wanted to the style of a Venn diagram, labelling one question this notion by not only highlighting the ways in which we are side with their own name and the other alike—most notably in our capacity to suffer (Singer, 1975)—but also by with the name of their animal team mem- considering if our differences even matter when it comes to a conside- ber. As I called out various traits (e.g., I go ration of ethical treatment. The anthropomorphic portrayal of nonhu- to school, I have a unique personality, I can man animals in children’s media results in a distorted understanding feel pain) they’d draw a tick to indicate and unrealistic expectations of the intelligence, capabilities and mo- if they thought it was true of themsel- rality of their real-life counterparts (Anderson and Henderson, 2005). A ves, the animal, or both. The post-activity paper published in the journal of Society and Animals (Anderson and discussion was really insightful and en- Henderson, 2005) shows how these misrepresentations are interna- couraging, the children demonstrating lised and sustained into adulthood, influencing and jeopardising our their emotional intelligence with a recog- relationships with nonhuman animals in a plethora of ways. nition that just because somebody looks different, doesn’t share their language or “The realization that animals are not like the characters from the sto- is less capable in any way, doesn’t mean ries to which we are attached bears consequences. Many of our current they should be “bullied” or treated unfair- animal husbandry practices are justified by evaluating the extent to ly. I believe that learning to apply this level which a given species is similar to humans. When expectations engen- of tolerance and respect independent of dered by misguided representations are not met, the way we relate to species is a significant step towards dis- real animals—in all contexts—is affected” (Anderson and Henderson, mantling speciesism. 2005, p. 304).

21 Session 3: Making the Connection

Activity: If Ads Were Honest A lot of the anger that has fuelled my advocacy over the years has come from the realisation that the majority of animal cruelty is caused by good people. Not only do billions of animals suffer It’s hard to efectively describe how terribly farm animals are routi- from the violence and predatory com- nely treated today. The industry knows that people love animals, and petitiveness our herding culture em- so makes every efort to keep the public from fnding out what goes bodies (Tuttle, 2005), we ourselves are victims of a system that manipulates on in the windowless warehouses where hens are kept by the tens of us to act against our own values. If the thousands, living in cages that are so cramped that they can never, in animal exploitation industries didn’t their entire lives, lift a single wing, their beaks cut of so they don’t believe that people would stop buying their products if they knew the reality mutilate and kill each other in their fury at how they are forced to of where they came from, why would live. The industry doesn’t want you to know how the animals live as they go to such incredible lengths to they are prepared for slaughter. It doesn’t want you to know that da- hide it? iry cows are kept in massive concentrations on crowded dry feedlots, hardly able to move, devoid of a single blade of grass. So the industry gives you ad campaigns telling you that “great cheese comes from happy cows,” and showing images of cows grazing contentedly in be- autiful pasture land. We have happy cow ads, happy chicken ads, and it’s all a lie.

Robbins, Why We Love Dogs [Foreword], 2011

22 Figure 10: Above: “The Laughing Cow” cheese product from company Fromageries Bel. It seems clear to me that if advertising I explored this idea in my own way Below: My redesign of the product, edited in was honest, our purchases—and our with the students by presenting them Procreate. dinner plates—would look very diffe- with two images: the ﬁrst, a popular rent. In a study (Kunst and Hohle, 2016) soft cheese product printed with the that looked at people’s dissociation of words The Laughing Cow above a car- meat from its animal origins and its toon cow doing just that; the second, effect on empathy, researchers found my edit of the same product but with the following: the text changed to The Crying Cow and the animal’s facial expression alte- • Presenting a live animal in a meat ad- red to match (Figure 10). When asked vertisement increased empathy and which of the two they’d rather buy, reduced willingness to eat meat. almost all of the students chose the laughing cow version, expressing that • When beheaded, a whole roasted pig they didn’t like seeing the cow upset. evoked less empathy and disgust One student conﬁdently stated that than when the head was present. she wouldn’t buy either, because “the people are probably lying about the • Describing industrial meat produc- cow being happy.” I couldn’t have been tion as “harvesting” vs “killing” or more thrilled to have someone pre- “slaughtering” indirectly reduced em- empt my next activity! pathy.

• Replacing “meat/pork” with “cow/pig” in a restaurant menu increased empathy and disgust, reducing willingness to eat meat.

(Kunst and Hohle, 2016)

23 Based off Media Education Foundation’s guidelines for Deconstructing an Advertisement, I presented the students with a picture of a product (Figure 11) and posed the following questions to get them thinking about the purpose, consequences and honesty of advertising: 1. What is the ad trying to sell? 2. Which animal does the product come from? 3. Is the animal shown on the packaging? 4. How is the imagery and wording trying to make you feel? 5. Is the ad honest? Does it accurately represent the animal’s reality?

Despite the ﬁnished result seeming relatively straightforward, I found this activity the most challenging to design. Addressing the dishonesty in the way animal products are advertised to us gets to the core of the anti-speciesist message, but it’s also potentially confusing for youngsters and I was desperately trying not to resort to a lecture-style of teaching. Sophie reassured me that the students would be capable of tackling such a complex topic and she was right. After having some time to talk amongst themselves, we brought the discussion to the larger group and the students sur- prised and impressed me with their understanding of corruption in advertising and their candour in expressing it. A student sitting at the back of the classroom raised his hand patiently before elo- quently summing it up for the group: “The companies lie to us so that we’ll buy their products. If people found out they are hurting animals, they wouldn’t get our money.” Maybe I was the one over- complicating things after all.

Figure 11: The three product examples used in the activity “If Ads Were Honest.” 24 Activity: I Am Someone Who… “I am someone who…” How would you fnish this sentence? How will you live in a way that aligns with your answer? “I am someone who is kind to animals because... This was the prompt question for the workshop’s ﬁnal activity, giving students the opportunity to self-reﬂect and consider what it means to put words into action. I’ve heard animal rights activist James Aspey talk about the concept of “making a vow to yourself” when going vegan—no one ...they have emotions too.” else will hold you accountable, the responsibility ultimately lies with you. There was no expectation on the children to vow to go vegan, of course—this activity was about having courage in our convictions and trying to live with integrity, whatever that looks like for each one of us.

I designed this activity sheet (Figure 12) with Zoe Weil’s concept of a “solutionary” in mind. A solutionary is a person who identiﬁes and replaces inhumane and unsus- tainable systems with visionary solutions, uses their knowledge and skills to create positive changes that do not harm one group while helping another, and strives to Figure 12: Two examples of make personal choices and support systems that do the completed “I Am Someo- ne Who…” activity sheets. most good and least harm to people, other species, and Students were prompted the environment (Weil, 2016). In her book, The World Beco- to fll out as many or as few of the statements they mes What We Teach, Weil talks about her belief in educating wanted to, based on which for a kinder world by adopting a more relevant and mea- they felt were applicable ningful purpose for schooling, making school real-world to them. and solutionary-focused, and preparing teachers to edu- cate their students to be solutionaries (Weil, 2016). My experience collaborating with the educators, students, animals and everyone else involved in this project has mo- tivated me to keep on inspiring and being inspired as we try and navigate this solutionary space together.

25 Design as Activism

Figure 13: The homepage of my website prototype. A Shareable Resource One of the strengths in design-based activism is its ability to be shared. To explore the possibilities that could come with extending my project beyond the scope of a single collaboration, I designed a website prototype (Figure 13) that would allow my workshop and my research to reach more people. Not only would this give me the chance to share outcomes and insights from sessions I have already facilitated, but the workshop could exist there as a temp- late, complete with activity sheets and lesson plans to be downloaded, printed and run by anyone else eager to explore the topic of animal rights.

With speciﬁc sections for students, parents and teachers, I hope to make the topic of animal rights accessible to as many people as possible, and hopefully bridge any gaps of misunderstanding. Throughout this process, I was very aware that I may be introducing a source of conﬂict into the lives of the children by exposing them to a complex, emotional, at times distressing and often highly contro- versial topic. I believe that good education is passionate and unapologetically honest, and that change happens when boundaries are pushed, but I also recognise the fe- elings of loneliness and helplessness that can come with such a major paradigm shift. If my platform can help just one child feel heard, help one parent rethink their negative opinion of veganism, or help one teacher talk about animal rights with their class, it will have done its job.

26 Outcomes and Refections Figure 14: Student feedback about the workshop. 18 students participated in the It’s not always easy to quantify the success of an in- workshop and answered the questions. teraction, but based on the enthusiasm of the students during the sessions and the subsequent feedback from Sophie during our debrief, I think I could conﬁdently tick the Strongly Agree box in response to the statement This was a positive and successful collaboration. Additionally, although the workshop was by no means a rigorous experiment and wasn’t intended to be, we were left with some data outcomes that I think are worth including.

Figure 14 shows the students’ answers to questions about their experience with the workshop. The response was overwhelmingly positive with all of the students agreeing that they enjoyed the workshop and learnt something new. Figure 15 shows the students’ lunch choices the week prior to and the week of my workshop.* Session 1 was run after lunch on the Monday, and sessions 2 and 3 were run back-to-back on the Tuesday afternoon. I don’t know the contents Figure 15: Student lunch choices on the the days before, during and after the workshop. Of the 15 students that had a hot school lunch on the Friday after the of the packed lunches, nor how the speciﬁc meal op- workshop, 13 of them (87%) chose the vegan option. tions on any given day affected the results, nor how long-lasting the impact will be, but with at least 50% of students choosing a vegan option on the Friday after my workshop compared with 0% the Friday before, I think it’s fair to say I was successful in at least plan- ting a seed of change.

*It’s worth noting that, although the workshop did address animal cruelty in relation to food, I didn’t at any point directly tell the students what to eat or what not to eat.

27 A digital game prototype connected humans and pigs by allowing them to play and interact with each other over distance. The project actually started out as a way to relieve the boredom of pigs awaiting slaughter but became a The students were also asked about way of highlighting people’s cognitive their favourite aspect of the workshop, dissonance through design interven- one thing they learnt, and one thing tion. I see so much potential in inter- they’d change. In response to the third species design facilitating a shift in question, several students expressed the way we view other species—nonhu- a desire to have the workshop held at mans recognised as participators and the sanctuary, allowing them to con- collaborators; nonhumans recognised nect with the animals in-person. There as citizens and persons. are also ways of enabling those deeper connections even when restricted to the digital space. Playing with Pigs (Driessen et al., 2014) is a poignant example of a design project that aimed to “re-negotiate human-animal relationships through playful encounters” (Wes- terlaken, 2017, p. 62).

28 If a child is raised to believe a chicken is worthy of compassion and respect, “do you think that child would ever grow up to oppress another human?” (Earthling Ed, 2018).

A Culture of Empathy All spheres of oppression are by-products of the same sys- I took was in its ability to reach people by inviting them into tematic evil, and while the experiences of the victims will the conversation in a way that emphasises asking questions always be unique, the systems themselves are similar becau- rather than demanding answers. A culture that asks ques- se the mentality that enables them is the same. Studies show tions is one that cultivates empathy. strong positive correlations between speciesism and prejudi- cial attitudes such as racism, sexism, and homophobia (Ca- There’s a common message in children’s media that I feel the viola et al., 2019), as well as a tendency to be more authorita- effects of to this day: that in order to grow up and become a rian, likely to accept inequality and willing to embrace social mature adult, a child must lose empathy for animals (Stewart hierarchies (Loughnan et al., 2014). By teaching children a se- and Cole, 2009). Whilst it may be true that to exist comfor- parate moral standard for animals that are considered food, tably in our current carnist society we must dull our innate we intercept their natural instincts to protect and empathise compassion and mock those bold enough to express theirs, with all animals (Stewart and Cole, 2009) and damage their what about the world we want to see? It may seem daunting, interhuman relationships in the process. perhaps even unfathomable, to move away from the recipes, stories, rituals and habits that make up our collective and This project is my attempt at countering this harmful narra- individual identities. On closer inspection, however, we may tive by bringing attention to voices less often heard or under- discover that our love of these things is actually rooted in our stood—those of nonhuman animals and children. Contextu- love for our family, our friends, our communities, and by ex- alising my activism in a design project has opened doors of tension, our fellow earthlings. I believe that teaching this mes- collaboration and learning I may otherwise not have knocked sage to our children brings us one step closer towards a world on and has encouraged me to explore change-making in a in which all persons can ﬁnally be recognised as someone. new way. I think the strength in the workshop-based approach

29 “When we wince at the sufering of animals, that feeling speaks well of us even if we ignore it, and those who dismiss love for our fellow creatures as mere sentimentality overlook a good and important part of our humanity. But it takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.”

Monson, Earthlings, 2005 References

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32 Acknowledgements

Thank you to everybody who helped make this project possible!

To Bex for being willing to reach out and make this collaboration happen. I truly couldn’t have done it without you.

To Sophie for your quiet care and abundant generosity. You never ask for thanks but here it is anyway. You embody everything a good teacher should be.

To the students for your enthusiastic participation and humbling insights. You give me hope for the future!

To Luca, Florence, Ambrose, Pecky, Prince and Peppa for reminding me why I’m doing this. I know your names and faces by heart and I hope to get to meet you in person—and personhood—someday.

To my supervisors for your unique advice that often helped in unexpected ways.

To Simon for volunteering your time and talent despite being so busy yourself. Your music enriched this project wonderfully and you’re just a pretty great dad, really.

To Henrik for always being my biggest supporter, my ﬁercest defender, and my best friend. And for ranting with me about how much the world sucks. You make it suck less.

And thank you to all our fellow earthlings who are willing to stand alongside us in the ﬁght for justice and liberation. For the animals.