Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
9
Fantastic Mr Fox?
Representing animals in the hunting debate
Michael Woods
Introduction
The hunting of wild mammals with hounds is one of the most controversial
political issues in contemporary Britain. For supporters, hunting forms an essential
part of rural life; to opponents it is a barbaric and cruel sport, violating the rights of
animals. In November 1997 the Wild Mammals (Hunting with Dogs) Bill was
presented to the British Parliament by the Labour MP Michael Foster, and, if it had
become law, would have made hunting with hounds illegal. As the newly elected
Parliament was calculated for the first time to have a large anti-hunting majority,
the bill was considered to have a realistic chance of success. It eventually fell victim
to parliamentary procedure, having failed to secure enough debating time to allow
its completion, but not before provoking a vociferous public debate about hunting.
The arguments mobilised in this debate ranged across issues of morality, civil
liberties, economics, rural—urban conflict, class, conservation and animal welfare.
Yet any political discussion of hunting is inescapably an issue about the
representation of animals in the political arena. As I have discussed elsewhere
(Woods 1998a), while animals are by nature barred from physical participation in
the political process, their representations are frequently evoked in political
discourse. This includes not only issues of animal rights and welfare where
representations are directly made on behalf of animals, but also policy fields
including agriculture, conservation and environmental health where animals are
intrinsically represented in the definition of problems and solutions (see also Philo
1995). Furthermore, representations of animals may be mobilised in other contexts
as symbols of certain discourses of place—for example, the hunting debate cannot
be separated from the contesting of rurality, with representations of animals
featuring prominently in many social constructs of the rural (Woods 1998a,
1998b). These in turn draw on ideas of human—nature relations and of nature and
rurality (see Bunce 1994; Burgess 1993; Cloke
et al.
1996; Eder 1996; Fitzsimmons
1989; Harrison and Burgess 1994; Short 1991; Wilson 1992; Woods 1998a).
However, as implied above, the meaning of 'representation' is multi-faceted.
Burgess (1993) comments how 'representing nature' can refer both to 'speaking on
behalf of nature' and symbolising nature in cultural artefacts and processes— or,
