Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Here notable animals are given individual names, histories and so forth, and their
lives, particularly in terms of 'love', procreation and even illness, are constructed and
deployed like soap operas, as in the breeding history of ChiChi the panda in
London Zoo. A host of household pets too are given names, and, perhaps, become
loved as individuals with specific habits and characteristics which become visible
within the intimate proximity of shared lives.
Problems with the individualist rights approach
Whatmore (1997) sees the extension of ethical consideration in the form of rights to
individual non-human others, based on current liberalist notions of the individual,
as problematic. In her assessment of the potential for building a form of
relational
ethics
which extends beyond the human realm, she feels that such a manoeuvre
might
breach the impasse of individual ethics at a number of key points…it releases
'nature' and non-human beings from their relegation to the status of objects
with no ethical standing in the pursuit of individual self-interest,
without
resorting to the extension of this liberal conception of ethical agency to other
animals.
(Whatmore 1997:47, emphasis in original)
Whatmore's description of where non-humans are in ethical terms now ('no ethical
standing') is generally the same as what I have set out. But her concern is that to call
for the extension of rights to non-humans through the extension of liberal
individualised ethics is to call upon a model which has itself drawn considerable
criticism from certain feminist and ecofeminist perspectives, and also which comes
under pressure from notions of hybridity. Although 'the general' position of animals
in terms of ethical relations is much as Whatmore states, in actuality there is a whole
range of variation within that position, linked to the strong spatial character with
which I am concerned. The implications of this warrant consideration for a number
of reasons: in particular, it can expose the inconstancy of such relations and the
unethical practice which is one side of that inconsistency.
Geographies of (un)ethical encounters
Be it the goldfish bowl, the rabbit hutch, the bull-fight ring, the animal hospital, the
abattoir, the vivisection lab, the house with a cat flap, the factory farm, the
'humane' farm, these are among the spaces where (un)ethical encounters between
humans and animals occur, and they are the spaces which determine to a significant
degree the nature of the encounter. There is a need to start unpacking these often
hidden geographies of encounter if we are to grasp the lived complexities of human
—non-human relations. The work of Arluke and Sanders (1996) shows how close
scrutiny of human—animal relations has to build from such a spatial grounding.
