here - New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies

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Aotearoa New Zealand
Human-Animal Studies
Conference 2015
Programme
Ilam Campus, University of Canterbury
http://www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz/conferences.shtml
Hosted by
The New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies
www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz
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From the Co-Directors of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies…
Nau mai, haere mai ki te wānanga o te Puna Akorangi o Aotearoa mo te Tangata me te
Kararehe! Welcome to this conference hosted by the New Zealand Centre for HumanAnimal Studies!
This hui or meeting is an opportunity to showcase the research in Human-Animal Studies
and Critical Animal Studies that is being conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand, in particular,
and more widely in Australasia and globally.
We are delighted to welcome our keynote speakers and invited plenaries:
Dr Melissa Boyde, School of Arts, English and Media, Wollongong University, Australia,
editor or Journal of Animal Studies and co-editor of Animal Publics book series
Professor Susan McHugh, Department of English, University of New England, USA, and
author of Dog (Reaktion, 2004), Animal Stories: Narrating Across Species Lines (University of
Minnesota Press, 2013) and editor of The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies
(Routledge, 2014) and Literary Animals Look (Antennae journal, 2013)
Professor Henrietta Mondry, Professor of Russian and English, University of Canterbury,
author of Political Animals: Representing Dogs in Modern Russian Culture (2015)
Dr Cecilia Novero, German Department, Otago University, Dunedin, author of Antidiets of
the Avant-Garde: From Futurist Cooking to Eat Art (UMP 2010)
Angela Singer, acclaimed artist and animal activist, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Dr Yvette Watt, acclaimed artist, academic, and activist, Tasmanian College of the Arts,
University of Tasmania, Australia
We also wish to sincerely thank the other organizers of this conference – Donelle Gadenne,
Pieta Gray and Cassie Paterson – we couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful team.
Special thanks to Pieta and Donelle for their vegan home-baking which will sustain us during
afternoon teas on both days of the conference. Many thanks also to Kirsty Dunn for her
generous mihi whakatau (greeting and welcome) to conference manuhiri (guests).
The kaupapa (underlying principle or theme) of this conference is ‘kindness and respect to
all species’, and in the spirit of this kaupapa the conference has been organized as an event
free of charge which all can attend. We very much look forward to meeting and learning
from everyone at this conference. We wish you an absorbing and enjoyable time.
Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong, Co-Directors, New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal
Studies www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz
Thanks too to Lotus the Sparrow, a cherished companion who posed for the programme cover.
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Aotearoa New Zealand Human-Animal Studies Conference 2015
Schedule at a Glance
Day 1: Thursday 5th November
0900-0930 (VENUE: F3 – Forestry Building, Ilam Campus)
Mihi Whakatau (Māori Welcome) Kirsty Dunn (Te Rawara, Te Aupouri)
And greetings from the conference organizers: Annie, Donelle, Pieta and Philip
0930-1030 (F3) Keynote speaker introduced by Philip Armstrong
Henrietta Mondry (Russian and English, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury, NZ)
Love, service and sacrifice: Dog training and child upbringing in the Soviet
discourse in the 1930s
1030-1100 Coffee break (maps to cafes on campus provided)
1100-1300 (F3) Plenary panel: Aotearoa New Zealand
(Chaired by Philip Armstrong)
Donelle Gadenne and Annie Potts (English and Cultural Studies, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Human-animal stories from the Christchurch earthquakes
Jamie Steer (School of Environment, University of Auckland, NZ)
Killing introduced species in New Zealand: Its importance to our identity and
economy
Alison Loveridge (Sociology, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Changes in views of farm animal welfare in New Zealand
Mary Murray (Presenter) (Sociology, Massey University, NZ), Robert Piciotio (Kings
College), Michael Morris, Jiaqi Jiang, and Jiaqui Li (China Agricultural University), Matt
Russell (Massey University)
Towards the development of an International Animal Cruelty Index
1300-1400 Lunch (BYO, BuyYO – numerous cafes on campus)
1400-1530 (F3) Panel 1: Animals and Literature (Chaired by Henrietta Mondry)
Donelle Gadenne (English, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Dialogue with dogs: A canine-centric critique of language and interspecies
communication in four dog narratives
Kirsty Dunn (English, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
The ultimate me(a)taphor? Cannibalism and the consumable ‘other’ in
contemporary fiction
Janet Sayers (School of Management, Massey University, Auckland, NZ)
Cat-bird writing in Aotearoa
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1400-1530 (LAW105) Panel 2: Combatting Cruelty
(Chaired by Alison Loveridge)
Steve Glassey (CEO, Wellington SPCA, NZ)
Shooting them isn’t the answer: Why pets matter in disasters
Nicholas Taylor (Animal Care and Adoptions Manager, Wellington SPCA, NZ)
Humane cat management in New Zealand
Justine Philip (School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England,
Australia)
The institutionalisation of poison
1530-1600 Afternoon tea provided, ALIBI coffee room, 1st floor LAW building
1600-1700 (F3) Plenary panel: Power and Control
(Chaired by Tanja Schwalm)
Scott Hurley (Presenter) and Richard Merritt (Religion and Paideia, Luther College,
USA)
Invisible geographies: Violence and oppression in the prison industrial
complex and concentrated animal feeding operations
Yamini Narayanan (Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin University, Australia)
Animals at the intersections of religion, neoliberalism and informality: Bullcalf trafficking in Simhachalam Temple, Visakhapatnam
Susan McHugh (English, University of New England, USA)
Racial non-allegories and animal revolutions in film
Yvette Watt, Offering #3 (Sally), 2007
artist’s blood in linen tea towel
71 x 49cm
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Day 2: Friday 6th November
0900-1000 (F3) Keynote speaker introduced by Annie Potts
Yvette Watt (Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of Tasmania, Australia)
Animal factories and anti-duck-shooting: Negotiating academia as an activist artist
1000-1100 (F3) Panel: Art and Advocacy (Chaired by Annie Potts)
Angela Singer (Artist and activist, Wellington, NZ)
Activism, art and the death of the animal
Melissa Boyde (School of Arts, English and Media, Wollongong University, Australia)
‘Peace and quiet and open air …’: The Old Cow Project
1100-1130 Morning tea (map to cafes on campus provided)
1130-1300 (KD03) Panel 1: Human-Elephant Relations (Chaired by Susan McHugh)
Piers Locke (Anthropology, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Multispecies methodology, interdisciplinary collaboration, and human-elephant
relations
Samantha Eason (Anthropology, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Story-telling and animal biographies in alternative tourism: Creating engagement at
an elephant sanctuary in Thailand
Linda Madden (School of Environment, Auckland University, NZ)
‘Anjalee loves Niue’: Tracing an elephantine journey from Sri Lanka to Auckland Zoo
1130-1300 (LAW105) Panel 2: Veg*nism & Intersectionality
(Chaired by Donelle Gadenne)
Karishma Ram (Total Liberation, Christchurch, NZ)
‘Total liberation’ as the combined theory and praxis of veganism
Jessica Ison (Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Oceania, Australia)
Queering animal liberation, or animal informed queer theory?
Annie Potts (English and Cultural Studies, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
‘Too sexy for your meat’: On vegan sexuality
Maddie Judge (Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne, Australia)
Vegetarian utopias: Visions of dietary patterns in future societies and support for
social change
1300-1400 Lunch (BYO, BuyYO)
1400-1545 (KF08) Panel 1: Pedagogy and Philosophy
(Chaired by Philip Armstrong)
Nichola Kriek (Education Officer, Save Animals From Exploitation, NZ)
Animals & Us: Bringing Human-Animal Studies into schools
Pamela Peters (IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute, Palmerston North, NZ)
From alligators to zebras: The ABCs of teaching Human-Animal Studies in ESOL
Fiona Dalzell (Philosophy, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Kantian philosophy and animal experimentation in veterinary teaching schools
Michael-John Turp (Philosophy, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Hume, humans and other animals
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1400-1545 (KD03) Panel 2: Activism and Empathy (Chaired by Yvette Watt)
Sorcia Forgan (Cultural Studies, Artist, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Shaming identity: A viable route to compassionate change
Tanja Schwalm (English, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
How many lightbulbs does it take to change a meat-eater? The green avoidance of
kindness
Kara Kennedy (English, UC, NZ)
From animal welfare to human enhancement: Margaret Cavendish’s animal-human
hybrids in The Blazing World
Jean Marie Carey (Department of Languages and Cultures, Otago University, NZ)
Photographs of Franz Marc with animals: A case study
1545-1615 Afternoon tea provided (ALIBI café space, LAW Building)
1615-1715 (F3) Plenary panel: Animals and Wonder (Chaired by Piers Locke)
Amy Fletcher (Political Science, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
Listening to extinction: Eco-sound from reel-to-reel to soundscape ecology
Philip Armstrong (English, NZCHAS, UC, NZ)
‘The wonderment of this taxonomy’: Bestiaries old and new
Cecilia Novero (German, University of Otago, NZ)
Recollecting in natural museums: Spoerri and other artists in Vienna
1815-1830 (F3) Haere ra/conference close: Kirsty Dunn
1900 Drinks and meal at KENZO Japanese restaurant for those who RSVPed
(car pooling to get there)
Yvette Watt, Making Faces (goat) 2005, Oil on board, 27 x 36.5cm
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DETAILED CONFERENCE SCHEDULE WITH ABSTRACTS
Day 1 Thursday 5th November
0900-1300 -- Lecture Theatre F3 (Forestry), University of Canterbury Ilam Campus
0900-0930 Mihi Whakatau (Māori welcome) and conference opening:
Kirsty Dunn (Te Rawara, Te Aupouri), English Department, UC, and New Zealand Centre for
Human-Animal Studies
0930-1030 Keynote speaker:
Henrietta Mondry (Russian and English, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Love, Service and Sacrifice: Dog Training and Child Upbringing in the Soviet Discourse in the 1930s
Abstract: The paper discusses a selection of literary texts and films created for children and
adolescent audiences in 1939 – the year before the start of WW2. As children are invited to be
vigilant in helping to identify the outside enemy, they are expected to take part in the correct
training of service dogs. They are also taught to make sacrifices. The new rhetoric teaches them to
reinterpret the bonds of love and loyalty between them and their dogs. As such, they are caught
between the Pavlovian and the Durovian approaches towards dogs and other animals 'on service to
socialism'.
[1030-1100 Coffee break]
1100-1300 Plenary panel: Aotearoa New Zealand (Chair: Philip Armstrong)
Donelle Gadenne and Annie Potts (English and Cultural Studies, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Human-animal stories from the Christchurch earthquakes
As a nation New Zealand has one of the highest levels of pet ownership per capita, ahead of
Australia, North America and the United Kingdom. Companion animals confer many social, physical,
psychological and emotional benefits to their guardians; the presence of companion animals also
mitigates the psycho-physiological consequences of trauma and stress. It has been shown, for
example, that children with pets living in war zones exhibit lower levels of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder compared with children without pets. The flip side of these benefits, however, is that losing
a pet can be a significant stressor. Levels of grief following pet loss are comparable to levels of grief
following the loss of a loved human; and pet-related bereavement is also strongly correlated with
symptoms of depression. Given these factors, it stands to reason that following the recent major
earthquakes in Christchurch, residents demonstrated great concern for the safety and well-being of
the city’s companion animals, initiating a variety of actions to secure the successful rescue, return or
rehoming of evacuated, abandoned or displaced animals. In this presentation we employ
photographs and accounts from the time of the February 22nd 2011 earthquake to outline key issues
and concerns facing animals – and the people who care for them – during natural disasters and
other emergencies.
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Jamie Steer (School of Environment, University of Auckland)
Killing introduced species in New Zealand: Its importance to our identity and economy
Introduced species in New Zealand have long been considered a regrettable component of the wild
biota. They may be tolerated when not obviously detrimental to human interests, particularly in
relation to certain valued native species, but are otherwise actively eliminated. Nevertheless, in
recent years diverse scholars have begun to argue that the rationale behind these killings deserves
further critique. In this talk I demonstrate some of the consequences of an enduring rhetoric of
‘responsibility’ to native species, both showing and contesting the ways in which the current sense
of duty to native populations obscures the ‘necessary’ death of countless introduced individuals. I
suggest that many New Zealanders suffer from a lingering disconnection from nature, reconciling
their own place or role in the country through two functions: firstly, as biological ‘archivists’ and,
secondly, as ‘moral predators.’ I show how war metaphors and other forms of conservation rhetoric
work not only to legitimise slaughter, but also to translate the death of introduced species into
economic opportunities. I explain how these ways of understanding death coalesce to form
important impediments to any overarching reconciliation of introduced species in New Zealand.
Alison Loveridge (Sociology, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Change in views of farm animal welfare?
Consumer action is leading to increasing external control of on-farm activities in New Zealand.
Traditional views of animal welfare are among those being challenged and farmers are being
pressured by media coverage of welfare issues to demonstrate that they are meeting industry
standards in their treatment of animals. This paper explores rural and urban people’s views on farm
animal welfare in response to surveys commissioned by MAF/MPI since the 1990s. Although this
data is not directly comparable, understanding of multiple viewpoints on changing farm practices is
slowly accumulating. Context is proving important to interpretation of each new study. Many
statements on both environmental and animal welfare practices are highly politicised and best
understood in a global context despite the specificities of New Zealand production systems.
Mary Murray (Sociology, Massey University - Presenter), Robert Piciotio, Michael Morris, Jiaqi
Jiang, Jiaqui Li, and Matt Russell
Towards the development of an International Animal Cruelty Index
This paper outlines work in progress towards the development of an international Animal Cruelty
Index (ACI). The ACI critically develops the compilation of an Animal Welfare Index by World Animal
Protection (formerly WSPA), based on legal protection provided to animals. Legal instruments are
useful indicators for the attitude prevalent towards animals, but their limitations are apparent. A law
tells us what ought to happen, but does not tell us what actually happens on the countries
concerned. New Zealand for example has strong animal welfare legislation and this prompted World
Animal Protection to give in the highest score. However, legal protection of animals is fraught with
problems. The paper will outline some of these problems and our research to date on the
development of the ACI.
[1300-1400 Lunch (BringYO, BuyYO)]
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1400-1530 Panels (split into two rooms)
Panel 1 (F3): Animals and Literature (Chair: Henrietta Mondry)
Donelle Gadenne (English, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Dialogue with dogs: A canine-centric critique of language and interspecies communication in four
dog narratives
In this paper I perform a canine-centric reading, within the theoretical frame of Critical Animal
Studies, of four ‘dog narratives’ from the last three decades – that is, novels in which dogs and
human-canine relationships are central to the story. While the novels differ from each other in
numerous and substantial ways, they share a common trait: a conduciveness to the examination of
tensions, paradoxes and contradictions inherent to the human-canine bond as it exists in Western
culture. I find that while some dog narratives reinforce the belief that human language privileges the
human species, others undermine this claim by privileging canine forms of language and through
depicting human language as problematic or as overrated as a means of communication. The
outcome of these polarised viewpoints can mean the difference between dogs’ being appreciated
for their uniqueness or their being devalued when the perceived lack is used as justification for their
subjugation.
Kirsty Dunn (English, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
The ultimate me(a)taphor? Cannibalism and the consumable ‘other’ in contemporary fiction
A quick survey of reality television offerings, news articles, and advertisements is enough to show
the ubiquity of meat on the screens and in the diets, homes, and psyches of many Western
consumers. However, the actual animals that are reared, slaughtered, and packaged into meat
products, and the industrialized processes that they undergo in order to transform them from
animal subjects to consumable objects, are, for the most part, missing from these types of media
fodder. In my Master’s thesis, Inherit the World, Devour the Earth: Representations of Western Meat
Production and Consumption in Contemporary Fiction, I argued that these absent animals, the
processes they encounter, and the discourses used in order to perpetuate Western meat production
and consumption can be found in three contemporary novels: Meat (Joseph D’Lacey 2008), Cloud
Atlas (David Mitchell 2004), and Under the Skin (Michel Faber 2000). This paper, based on the final
chapter of my thesis, centres on the authors’ representations of the cannibal as the ultimate “Other”
figure. I discuss the ways in which various depictions of cannibalism transgress the boundaries
between “us” and “them” or “human” and “animal” and complicate notions of savagery and civilized
behaviour. I also interpret the cannibal figure as a symbol of the exertion of power by one group
over another; I consider the hierarchical arrangement of workers in the meat industry and the power
demonstrated in the language used to describe “animals”, meat, and female bodies in particular.
These fictional representations of cannibalism in the narratives selected confront us with a number
of ways in which the modern meat industry creates both human and non-human animal
“consumable” bodies. The cannibal, therefore, provides an entrance to the Western meat-machine opening it up as a site of human and “animal” entanglement wherein the welfare of both are
inextricably bound together and both suffer the adverse effects of industrialization.
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Janet Sayers (School of Management, Massey University)
Cat-bird writing in Aotearoa
This is an experimental paper-in-development about writing-animal. It begins in recent controversy
in NZ regarding the control of domestic cats; a similar debate has occurred in Australia. The
controversy began when Gareth Morgan, a successful business person and well-known NZ activist,
philanthropist and media personality, suggested cat populations need to be controlled due to their
deadly impact on native bird life. NZ has the largest domestic cat population per person in the world
and people are very fond of their cats. The present paper takes as its start-point feminist dog-writing
which involves playful relational co-constitution with non-human Others through acts of writing
(McHugh, 2012). Feminist dog-writing embraces and works through in practice the notion that
human and nonhuman species and individuals co-create and co-constitute their systems of
organizing. In the present paper I build upon the idea of dog-writing and adapt it to writing about
cats and birds. I write about my experiences with the many cats I have known and loved over my
lifetime. I use cats as a cipher to discuss native birds and my relationship with Aotearoa and its
unique environment, flora and fauna and my position as a Pakeha subject. In terms of a writing
model I am influenced by ‘H is for Hawk’ (Macdonald, 2014), which is part memoir, part naturewriting. ‘H is for Hawk’ explores the relationships between the author and her hawk through the
death of her father, which she interweaves with the story of another falconer and famous author
T.H. White. In the text I am trying to write (it is a work-in-progress) the intention is to explore the
tensions between my cat-love and my love for Aotearoa’s bird-life; two human-non-human
relationships which sit very uneasily together, in order to draw attention to the central problem
which is not cat but human-animal.
References
Macdonald, H. (2014). H is for hawk. London: Jonathan Cape.
McHugh, S. (2012). Bitch, bitch, bitch: Personal criticism, feminist theory and dog-writing. Hypatia,
27(3), 616-635.
Panel 2 (LAW105): Combatting Cruelty (Chair: Alison Loveridge)
Steve Glassey (CEO, Wellington SPCA)
Shooting them isn’t the answer: Why pets matter in disasters
With over 44% of those failing to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina doing so in part because they
were unable to take their pets, the issue of pets in disasters has become a major issue and focus for
emergency managers worldwide. The academic consensus is that pets are seen as part of the human
family and that leaving them behind in an evacuation is contrary to public safety. This paper explores
the human-animal bond and the implications of this for emergency managers and responders
through an assortment of literature and media articles, providing the basis for taking an evidence
based approach to companion animal emergency planning. Finally, a short commentary is offered on
the development of the Civil Defence Disability Assist Dog tag in New Zealand and its benefits for the
community and emergency response organisations.
Nicholas Taylor (Animal Care and Adoptions Manager, Wellington SPCA)
Humane cat management in New Zealand
New Zealand has a cat overpopulation problem (or at least a perceived cat overpopulation problem).
But New Zealand is not alone in this issue with a large number of countries trying to get a handle
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‘how to deal with cats’. Part of the problem is often around understanding what the problem
actually is.
Wellington SPCA has over 20 years of community desexing programs reducing and maintaining the
over population of companion animals. These, for most part, have been for owned animals
The Code of Welfare for Companion Cats uses the definitions of feral, companion and stray to define
cats. Feral cats in this context are those that live completely away from and have none of their needs
met by humans (essentially meaning that its sustenance is on predation). A companion Cat is an
owned ‘pet’ cat. Stray cats with this definition are companion cats that are ‘lost or abandoned’ and
living as ‘individuals’ or in a ‘colony’
What about then the stray cats that are in fact a 6th generations since the cat was ‘abandoned’?
What about when cats are in fact ‘semi-owned’ rather than unowned (and may have in fact been fed
every day for over five years but still no considered an ‘owned’ pet by the feeder? What about that
many of these cats, in an overseas perspective, are referred to as Feral (and even often the term is
used that way in New Zealand)? While the term ‘Feral’ may not be accurate for a category of cat, if
it’s used in a descriptive form describing the cats behaviour, these unsocialised cats do appear ‘feral’
in the common use of the word.
‘From the ground’ Wellington SPCA has seen that most of the unwanted born (and thus undesexed)
cats belong to these categories of unowned and semi-owned ‘stray’ animals and thus regular
desexing programs for owned cats will often ‘miss’ these high producers of unwanted litters. Often,
these unsocialised cats are also to be found in lower-soci-economic areas which may have other
associated Animal Welfare or even human, social issues. How do we continue to address and even
solve a problem where we haven’t yet been able to adequately qualify and quantify what the
problem actually is?
Justine Philip (School of Environment and Rural Science, University of New England, Australia)
The institutionalisation of poison
In this paper I explore the application of poison as an ecological architect and pest control agent
across Australia and New Zealand. The research is based within human-animal studies (HAS) and
environmental history, focusing on the dingo and other vertebrate species categorised as ‘declared
animals’. These are species perceived as representing a threat to primary industries, natural
resources and the environment, and are the target of lethal controls. The widespread use of 1080,
strychnine and other toxins in both New Zealand and Australia, operates without the sanction of the
international community and counter to the guidelines and recommendations of the World Health
Organisation (WHO). The implications of long-term dependence on poison in environmental control
is both scientifically and ethically challenging, and the ramifications of this have not been
inadequately addressed in current literature. On examination of historical records, a common
rhetoric emerges that reveals much about how the representation of target species relies on social
rather than scientific constructs, and how these have become embedded within narratives over
time, influenced by geographical, economic and social factors. Through exploring this area of
human-wildlife conflict, archival material reveals that historically the lethal control of pest species
has frequently been a case of mistaking the poison for the cure.
[1530-1600 Afternoon tea provided (Alibi Café Space by LAW105)]
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1600-1830: F3 lecture theatre (Forestry)
1600-1700 Plenary panel: Power and Control (Chair: Tanja Schwalm)
Scott Hurley (Presenter) and Richard Merritt (Religion and Paideia, Luther College, USA)
Invisible geographies: Violence and oppression in the prison industrial complex and concentrated
animal feeding operations
Nowhere is the act of violence more complete, sustained, and systematically codified than in the
Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Through overt physical domination, the psychological and bodily
control of inmates is maintained. Lobbying by the private prison industry and the war on drugs and
terror have fueled the increase in the United States prison population and have contributed to the
commodification and objectification of inmate bodies. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
(CAFOs) perpetuate violence in organized and efficient ways. The commodified animal body—
controlled through confinement, restriction, and pain—systemically parallels the treatment of
inmate bodies. Just as the PIC maintains itself though lobbying efforts, law, and manipulation of
public opinion, CAFOs have relied on lobbying efforts, deregulation, and profiteering to fuel growth.
Central to these industries is the invisibility of their operations. Both of them rely on a “post
regulatory” systematized objectification of bodies, the visceral nature of which would be publicly
inflammatory, and thus detrimental to economic profit. Therefore, these industries have created
hidden geographies that conceal their physical locations and processes while at the same time
normalizing the notion that people need prisons to stay safe and meat to stay healthy. This article
discusses the historical development of these industries in the United States and examines the metastructures that sustain them in order to highlight the violent and oppressive social, political, and
economic structures and forces behind the treatment of inmate and animal bodies.
Yamini Narayanan (Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin University, Australia)
Animals at the intersections of religion, neoliberalism and informality: Bull-calf trafficking in
Simhachalam Temple, Visakhapatnam
Economic growth in developing countries relies on 'states of exception' created by conditions of
informality in cities: 'unauthorised' physical developments; mobilities; economic transactions; and
even populations that fall outside the boundedness of formal urban governance. Often strategically
produced by formality or formal development, informality intersects with religion to dismantle
democratic governance and equitable social structures, to privilege violence, oppression, and even
warlike conditions that exploit the labour and bodies of the poor, women, and natural resources.
Hitherto, informality has been analysed as a human condition.
This paper offers a posthuman interrogation of informality by foregrounding the exploitation of the
labour and bodies of sentient animals - particularly cattle - to aid capitalist development. Cattle
bodies, including their young, are meta-commodities for neoliberal growth worldwide. Baby bull
calves are the globally regarded 'waste product' of the dairy industry. However in India where the
cow and her progeny are protected from slaughter based on laws inspired by Hindu religion,
Hinduism itself needs to be made complicit in cattle brutalisation. The practice of male calf
'donation' to the Simhachalam Temple in Visakhapatnam city illustrates formal planning's complicity
in using religion as a smokescreen to illegally traffic baby bulls by creating spaces, transactions and
even populations of informality. Religion is conceptually and empirically important to understand
how cattle are located in the shadow 'gray space' between formal/informal planning in India.
Religion can also reinstate sentient nonhuman animals as, 'subaltern agents' or 'agents of change'
(Roy 2005) in the counter-resistance identity politics of informal spaces.
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1700-1800 (F3) Keynote speaker:
Susan McHugh (English, University of New England, USA)
Racial non-allegories and animal revolutions in film
Reviewers of Kornél Mundruczó’s White God (2015) praise its non-CGI execution of a mass streetdogs’ revolt, but express confusion about its meaning: is the uprising metaphorical, like Spartacus in
‘girl-and-her-dog drag’ (1963)? Or is it just more evidence of the impossibility of animal revolutions,
The Birds (1960) gone to the dogs? Recognizing in the title an homage to Sam Fuller’s racial nonallegory White Dog (1982), there is a sense of an even more revolutionary shift taking place for
animals in film, a change that is captured in viewers of White God’s shifting perceptions of one or
several dogs. Drawing comparisons with two contemporary films that link canids to historical acts of
mass killing, The Last Dogs of Winter (2011) and Qimmit: A Clash of Two Truths (2010), this project
examines how attention not only to content but also to formal aspects helps to track the halting
emergence of multispecies multitudes in film.
Day 2 Friday 6th November
0900-1100: Main Venue: Lecture Theatre F3 (Forestry), University of Canterbury Ilam Campus
Yvette Watt (Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of Tasmania, Australia)
Animal factories and anti-duck-shooting: Negotiating academia as an activist artist
This paper will begin by giving an overview of a major art project that involved photographing largescale industrial animal farms around Australia from publicly accessible vantage points. The images
aimed to capture the ‘internment’ or ‘concentration’ camp style layout of these industrial farms,
with the total absence of animals in the imagery serving to highlight the hidden and secretive nature
of the unnatural and restricted environment endured by the animals housed inside the windowless
sheds. The Animal Factories project, which received research funding through the University of
Tasmania, pursued an ongoing interest in the role of art in communicating issues surrounding the
ethics of human-animal relations. However, the intersection of art, activism and academia can
provide challenges – a matter that will be addressed through a discussion of a project that I am
currently working on, which involves staging a performance of Swan Lake at the opening of duck
shooting season in Tasmania. While the two projects differ dramatically in their methodologies, both
are concerned with visibility and invisibility; of the animals, of the farming/hunting practices, and of
the projects’ profiles within the academy. The paper closes by speculating on whether it is possible
for the “artivist” academic to resist the kind of institutional compliance that can deaden the creative
response to animal suffering.
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1000-1100 Plenary panel: Art and Advocacy (Chair: Annie Potts)
Angela Singer (Artist and activist, Wellington, New Zealand)
Activism, art and the death of the animal
For the past 20 years artist Angela Singer has created sculptural artworks exploring the human
animal relationship. She will present an informal talk and slideshow about her work and process. She
will explore the thinking behind her artwork combining mixed-media with “recycled” vintage
taxidermy and the processes of its making. She will explain how she attempts to incorporate into the
look of her work some of the history of the death of the animal.
Melissa Boyde (School of Arts, English and Media, Wollongong University, Australia)
‘Peace and quiet and open air …’: The Old Cow Project
This paper is informed by the statement, cited by Steve Baker in his discussion of the use of animals
in contemporary art, that animals are ‘beings’ not ‘ideas’. It centres on photographs of a particular
herd of cattle, from their beginnings in the late 1980s on the outskirts of Sydney to a recent series
taken of them by artist Derek Kreckler on the south coast of NSW. In contrast to the lives of the
majority of cattle in Australia, the members of this herd live out their natural life cycle. Just down
the road from where the herd lives is the local saleyard and on the day of Kreckler’s shoot, cattle,
young and old, penned in holding yards, one by one, went under the auctioneer’s hammer.
If there is any truth to a claim made by organisers of an anti-cattle slaughter campaign reported in
the newspaper India Today (1996) that ‘the trembling and wailing of the cows being led to slaughter
leads to earthquakes’ then the earth is in for a rough ride. After the recent catastrophic Japanese
earthquake an exhibition was curated from the thousands and thousands of photographs found
scattered through the debris of homes throughout the affected areas. The photographs, family
snapshots, were mostly damaged and the images of the people in them hard to make out, merely
traces.
The photographs shown during this paper are part of what I call ‘the old cow project’ and gesture to
the lives of cattle obscured in representation, lives untraced – from the camera obscura to the
present.
[1100-1130 Coffee break (map to cafes on campus provided)]
Panel 1 (KD03): Human-Elephant Relations (Chair: Susan McHugh)
Piers Locke (Anthropology, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Multispecies methodology, interdisciplinary collaboration, and human-elephant relations
This paper considers the methodological challenges of multispecies ethnography, and the limitations
of disciplinary habituation through critical reflection on two cases of anthropological research on
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human-elephant relations. As a posthumanist approach to the agency of nonhuman species, and
their social, historical, and ecological intersections with human life, multispecies ethnography is
reconfiguring the ethnographic gaze and stimulating new kinds of research. Ethnoelephantology
represents one such application; an attempt at an integrated approach that recognizes the
subjective agency of elephants, their entanglements with human lives and landscapes, and the
complementary role of the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Through
reflection on studies of communities of elephants and mahouts in Nepal, and encounters with
elephants at the fringe of field and forest in Assam, I note how we have profitably “poached”
intellectual resources from other disciplines, especially animal behavior, ecology, physiology, and
cognition. However, coming up against the limits of our disciplined capabilities as ethnographic
researchers, I discuss our recognition of methodological inadequacy. While we have sought to
expand our methodological toolkit, and while synergies between fieldwork in the social and the
natural sciences can be productively exploited, I conclude with the suggestion of multidisciplinary
collaboration to better achieve the goals of multispecies research.
Samantha Eason (Anthropology, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Story-telling and animal biographies in alternative tourism: Creating engagement at an elephant
sanctuary in Thailand
This paper discusses how an alternative elephant tourism setting in Thailand creates engagement
with travellers and Facebook supporters through sharing the stories of their elephants and other
animals. It examines the role of storytelling in building a worldwide network of supporters by
analysing what stories are told, how they are told, and how the audience engages with them.
This paper proposes that human-elephant relationships be considered from the perspective of a
networked biography (Foster, 2012) in which domesticated elephants are individuals with histories
that are forged through their human interactions and that can be documented and re-told. The
animal biography is a growing genre in popular literature but it is a notion that can be explored
further in the field of multi-species ethnography.
Based on recent fieldwork as a participant-observer, the paper shares initial impressions of how the
tourism model employed at the sanctuary creates a unique setting for the telling and sharing of
stories about elephants, other animals, and about ourselves, as well as creating opportunities for
travellers to participate in the story.
Reference: Foster, R. J. (2012). Notes for a Networked Biography: The P.G.T. Black Collection of
Oceanic Things. Museum Anthropology, 35(2), 149-169.
Linda Madden (School of Environment, University of Auckland)
‘Anjalee loves Niue’: Tracing an elephantine journey from Sri Lanka to Auckland Zoo
The acquisition and mobilisation of animal bodies has always been necessary for zoos to function.
Drawing from narratives surrounding the introduction of Anjalee - the most recent elephant to join
Auckland Zoo - this paper explores Anjalee’s status as a global citizen subject to politics of
international animal-immigration. Using the Deleuzian concept of the ‘machine’, I address Anjalee as
mobilised by technologies that have seen her shift from orphaned elephant in Sri Lanka, through a
six month quarantine in Niue, before taking on a new persona in Auckland Zoo as a civic public figure
who also fulfils a role as an animal ‘ambassador’ for places/elephants afar. Anjalee’s journey
therefore reveals a series of ‘becomings’ where her identity has been shaped by the spaces she has
inhabited. This critical analysis of zoo-centric processes therefore attends to the stages of Anjalee’s
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journey as sites of production in which social, organic and technological mechanistics have built a
complex public persona understood through Anjalee’s elephant body.
Panel 2 (LAW105): Veg*nism and Intersectionality (Chair: Donelle Gadenne)
Karishma Ram (Total Liberation, Christchurch)
‘Total liberation’ as the combined theory and praxis of veganism
Abolitionist veganism and total liberation are two concepts that together acknowledge that the only
logical consequence of deconstructing speciesism is ethical veganism (the rejection of animal use
and the property status of animals) and that secondly, speciesism as a form of oppression that is
inextricably linked to human oppression and must be challenged along with other oppressions in an
intersectional framework. Human and animal oppression share identical logic in that they
discriminate based on “morally irrelevant criteria” such as intelligence, ability to communicate or an
arbitrary consequence of birth such as species to decide who is worthy of moral consideration.
While most people would never accept excluding humans from moral consideration due to their
mental ability, we accept this argument for the exclusion of animals, among other inconsistently
applied criteria. This is indicative of a systematic hierarchy of human supremacy of
anthropocentrism which assumes it is justified for the most trivial human pleasure to override an
animal’s right to life, safety and freedom. A non-human we exploit only has value in so far as we
benefit from them, leading them to be enslaved for the food, entertainment and data they produce
for humans. More than 70 billion non-human individuals per year for food, not including hundreds of
billions of aquatic creatures and many more killed in vivisection labs and shelters because humanity
believes them to be inferior. However, it is not only non-humans who suffer due to speciesism as
people of colour, women and aboriginal people have been compared to nonhumans to justify their
oppression and objectify them. Women are called “pieces of meat”, people of colour are compared
to “wild animals” to this day and the same poor logic is used to render oppressed humans and nonhumans as less than “rational white man”.
Jessica Ison (Institute for Critical Animal Studies Oceania, Australia)
Queering animal liberation. Or, animal informed queer theory?
This paper will be an exploration of my current thesis research on queer theory and animal studies.
It will seek to unpack how Queer Theory addresses the animal and how Animal Studies represent the
queer, and indeed whether either discipline does this. Within the confines of the paper, it will
endeavour to cover as much of the literature as possible in order to situate a queer informed Animal
Studies (both HAS and CAS). Or perhaps an animal informed Queer Theory. Overall, it will highlight
the importance of a cross-disciplinary field that builds on the work of queer and animal theorists and
activism.
This paper is the beginning of a larger work and will therefore deliberately offer provocations that
have not yet been answered in the hope of creating a larger discussion about this potential gap in
the literature.
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Annie Potts (Cultural Studies, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
“Too sexy for your meat”: On vegan sexuality
The terms ‘vegansexuality’ and ‘vegansexuals’ entered popular discourse following substantial media
interest in a New Zealand-based academic study on ethical consumption that noted that some
vegans engaged in sexual relationships and intimate partnerships only with other vegans. At this
time it was suggested that a spectrum existed in relation to cruelty-free consumption and sexual
relationships: at one end of this spectrum, a form of sexual preference influenced by veganism
entailed an increased likelihood of sexual attraction towards those who shared similar beliefs
regarding the exploitation of non-human animals; at the other end of the spectrum such a
propensity might manifest as a strong sexual aversion to the bodies of those who consume meat and
other animal products. The extensive media hype about (and public response to) vegansexuality was
predominantly negative and derogatory towards ‘vegansexuals’ and vegans/vegetarians. A particular
aggression was evident in online comments by those positioned as heterosexual meat-eating men.
In earlier work Jovian Parry and I analysed the rhetoric associated with this backlash, noting that it
constructed ‘vegansexuals’ – and vegans more generally – as (sexual) losers, cowards, deviants,
failures and bigots. We suggested that the vigorous reactions of self-identified omnivorous men
demonstrate how the notion of alternative sexual practices predicated on the refusal of meat
culture radically challenges the powerful links between meat-eating, masculinity and virility in
western societies. In my presentation today, I will discuss these issues, and also examine some of the
ways vegans themselves responded to the concept of ‘vegan sexuality’.
Maddie Judge (Management and Marketing, University of Melbourne)
Vegetarian utopias: Visions of dietary patterns in future societies and support for social change
In the current study I draw on the collective futures framework to examine how visions of plantbased future societies are related to support for social change towards plant-based diets.
Participants were 506 university students in Aotearoa New Zealand invited to imagine a society in
2050 where most individuals consume a plant-based, vegetarian, or vegan diet. A thematic analysis
was conducted on responses to an open-ended item asking how these future societies would be
different to today. Participants reported a variety of potential positive and negative outcomes for
both individuals and wider society. In subsequent analyses of attitudes scales I investigated the
relationships between the collective dimensions of plant-based future societies and support for
policies to promote plant-based diets. For a vegetarian future, the strongest predictor of current
support for social change was the expectation that widespread vegetarianism would reduce societal
dysfunction. For a vegan future, the strongest predictor of support for social change was an
expectation of increased warmth in a vegan society. Implications for theory and advocacy will be
discussed.
[1300-1400 Lunch (BYO, BringYO)]
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Panel 1 (KF08): Pedagogy and Philosophy (Chair: Philip Armstrong)
Nichola Kriek (Education Officer, Save Animals From Exploitation, Christchurch)
Animals & Us: Bringing Human-Animal Studies into schools
In a world obsessed with consumerism, compressed by globalisation and depressed by
overwhelming social and environmental problems, it becomes increasingly difficult for people to
look outside the sphere of their own existence and concern themselves with animal issues. In spite
of incredible advances in our knowledge and understanding of non-human animals, human society
habitually views the animal in possessive and consumptive terms. Bringing Humane Education
principles that focus on the interests of animals into mainstream teaching and learning can therefore
present a challenge for educators. Policymakers and education stakeholders are generally not aware
of the important pedagogical advantages Humane Education offers. Although environmental
education has become a fundamental part of the New Zealand curriculum, Humane Education
remains outside the educative curricular framework and is not a formalised part of teaching and
learning. This exclusion, while frustrating, has not deterred New Zealand humane educators. Over
the past ten years SAFE have been creating a humane education programme specifically designed to
capitalise on the principles, key competencies and values on which the New Zealand curriculum is
based.
This education programme called Animals & Us provides opportunities for teachers and students to
explore these important curricula principles in the context of the human-animal relationship. The
programme thus complements the New Zealand secondary school curriculum and enhances
essential values learning outcomes. It also complements developments at tertiary level, such as the
launch in 2007 of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies at the University of Canterbury.
The Animals & Us humane education programme released in April 2007 has been embraced and
applauded by New Zealand teachers and educators and supported by leading academics working in
the field of Human-Animal Studies.
In this presentation I will give a brief introduction to the New Zealand educational and animal
advocacy context, followed by an overview of the Animals & Us programme. I will describe some of
the challenges we have faced in creating the programme, summarise the response we have had to is
so far, and conclude by outlining our plans for the future.
Pamela Peters (IPU New Zealand Tertiary Institute, Palmerston North, NZ)
From alligators to zebras: The ABCs of teaching Human-Animal Studies in ESOL
The flourishing field of anthrozoology, or Human-Animal Studies (HAS), has been growing by leaps
and bounds over the last 20-30 years, as predominantly seen in the ever-growing list of university
courses, programmes, degrees, and academic research journals such as Anthrozoos, Humanimalia
and Animals & Society. Introducing this fascinating and engaging topic to the tertiary ESOL (English
for Speakers of Other Languages) context began at IPU NZ Tertiary Institute in 2007, in the form of
three distinct papers: Human-Animal Interaction; Animal-Assisted Therapy & Service Animals; and
Animals in the Media. International students studying at Diploma level, most with an intermediate
level of ESOL, have the opportunity to enroll in these papers as elective options to supplement their
compulsory courses in English Skills and business or tourism. This presentation will explore the
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development and delivery of these courses, and what it means to traverse such topics in this unique
learning environment.
Fiona Dalzell (Philosophy, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Kantian philosophy and animal experimentation in veterinary teaching schools
A contemporary Kantian perspective can offer some interesting new interpretations of the ethical
duties we have in our relationship with other animals. Some of these views
concerning indirect duties, fractionated rationality and what is required to be a member of
the Kingdom of Ends could require a modern day Kantian to hold what has traditionally been seen as
a strong animal rights position. This talk will explore some of these positions, and offer an account of
why a modern day Kant might ban animal experimentation in veterinary teaching schools.
Michael-John Turp (Philosophy, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Hume, humans and other animals
In this presentation I identify and discuss an argument that is implicit in Hume’s discussion of animal
minds. Hume is committed to morally approving the good treatment of some other animals despite
himself. This is a consequence of (i) his account of moral judgment as grounded in sympathy and (ii)
plausible empirical claims he makes concerning animal minds. Some humans and some animals are
relevantly like-minded and, so, some animals matter morally. Although we can also find in Hume’s
writings several arguments that seem to block this conclusion, I show that these arguments don’t
succeed.
Panel 2 (KD03): Activism and Empathy (Chair: Yvette Watt)
Sorcia Forgan
Shaming identity: A viable route to compassionate change
Performance art occupies a liminal space, maintaining a sustained shift between reality
and its representation. In this way meaning is produced that remains in flux, challenging
the fixities emerging from more static and prescriptive modes of social and political
critique. When compared with more traditional modes of cultural representation such
as the linear, narrative-based constructs of conventional theatre and film, its capacity
for generating alternative outcomes supersedes these more authorially fixed media—
particularly since the outcome is largely a preconceived representation. This principle is
also in effect in the work of the activist whose cause, however justified, and whose
struggle for real and necessary justice, is often nullified or otherwise silenced by a
conservative front whose consent is coerced from a politically disengaged majority. In a
society where difference is largely feared and dissidence aligned with criminality,
atrocities against human and non-human animals continue to thrive.
Utilizing the Derridean model of deconstruction, whose product—différance, creates and
encourages alternative meaning through difference and deferral from fixity, I advocate a
performance practice that defies separation between artistic representation and the
reality it conveys. This process elides prescriptive authorship and authority in favour of
an alternative inscription that repels the reification and marginalized neutrality
emerging from traditional activism, which remains outmoded in a post-modern context.
Movement away from the individualism of identity politics disallows assignment of
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blame and negates a hierarchy of ethical accusation. Alternatively, shared complicity
allows for a new accountability that avoids the constraints necessary to binary politics
and its concomitant stereotypes of representation and affiliation. True compassion then
emerges from tangible engagement and shared shame and responsibility, forming the
basis for actuating change for all embodied beings.
Tanja Schwalm
How many lightbulbs does it take to change a meat-eater? The green avoidance of kindness
The cover of the June-July 2014 issue of Green Ideas magazine, “your guide to living more
sustainably”, sports not only an energy-efficient light bulb in its logo, but also the headline “happy
meat” next to an ostensibly smiling piglet. This front page captures the essence of a pervasive green
discourse of avoidance: there is a notable absence of information about the single most effective
action consumers can take to mitigate global warming, that is, to eat plants instead of animals.
Despite recent studies that show the negative impact of meat and dairy production on the
environment, environmentalist discourse avoids this issue. I will look at some examples of Green
Avoidance from popular media such as magazines and children’s films.
Moreover, this presentation will considers Green Avoidance as a failure of environmentalist
discourse to acknowledge “kindness”, both as ethical practice towards non-human animals and as
the awareness that we, too, are animals, we are kin and kind, so to speak, and but one species
amongst many on this planet. Global warming represents the nadir, so far, of an ongoing crisis in
Humanism, which requires radically rethinking what it means to be human. It requires practising
kindness. Yet, prominent environmental campaigns cling to the status quo and promote, mostly,
technological fixes, such as energy-efficient light bulbs and organic meat, whilst focussing exclusively
on charismatic animals. Thus, as the fate of our warming planet appears to boil down to a race
between two competing forms of selfishness, that of animal product consumption versus that of
survival, this presentation will consider whether an appeal to selfishness, that is, the survival of our
own species is a necessary strategic move towards raising awareness of human kindness with and
towards non-human animals.
Kara Kennedy
From animal welfare to human enhancement: Margaret Cavendish’s animal-human hybrids in The
Blazing World
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, has been recognized as a figure ahead of her time for
her unconventional beliefs and position of power in which to discuss them. In her 1666 fictional
work, The Blazing World, she prominently features female characters with intelligence and talent in
a utopian world in an early vein of science fiction. It has also been noted that her populating of the
world with Bird-men, Fish-Men, and other animal-human hybrids along with traditional animals and
humans speaks to her concern for animal welfare in a time where philosophers like Descartes
labeled animals as non-feeling things for humans to use as they wished. Yet Cavendish’s postulation
of these animal-human hybrids not only anticipates a more forgiving understanding of animals, but
also can be analysed from a posthuman perspective which might see their blending of physically
desirable traits (flying, underwater breathing, etc.) with the ability to talk and walk upright as an
infant imagining of future technological advances and augmentations to the human body.
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Jean Marie Carey
Photographs of Franz Marc with animals: A case study
Though he had presciently considered the ramifications of photographic technology and was an
early adopter of the personal camera, there exist fewer than two-dozen photographs of Franz Marc
himself. What is striking, and at the same time unsurprising, about this small chronicle is that most
of these photos show Marc in the company of the animals he so cherished – the fragile orphaned
fawns Schlick and Hanni; the “war horse” Eva; and Marc’s most beloved, the white sheepdog, Russi.
Yet these photographs have not been analyzed for the valuable information they can yield simply as
a biographical resource about Marc’s relationship with Russi, nor for the way their partnership is
refracted in Marc’s painted portraits of the dog, of which there are many. The images of Marc and
Russi extend canine-inclusive possibilities to suggest that Marc’s painterly creations of animal
mindedness are not divorced from reality in the way Expressionism is often construed, but rather
representative of his decentered perception of humans as the impetus of subjective experience and
memory.
[1545-1615 Afternoon tea provided (Alibi Café, Law Building)]
1615-1830: F3 (Forestry)
1615-1715: Plenary panel: Animals and Wonder (Chair: Piers Locke)
Amy Fletcher (Political Science, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
Listening to Extinction: Eco-Sound from Reel-to-Reel to Soundscape Ecology
In the Western tradition, representation of extinct and endangered species relies predominantly on
visual mediums such as painting, photography and film. However, since the late 19th century, the
use of sound technology has also played an important role in advancing cultural and political
awareness of extinction. This paper explores the politics of eco-sound in both its archival and
technological dimensions. It begins with the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a North American
species for which the only modern aural record of its existence remains a 1935 audio-video
recording by a Cornell research team (and a fragmented—and disputed--audio recording from the
late 1960s). The paper then traces the development of audio activism, focusing on both the new
science of soundscape ecology and on digital art that weaves the sounds of extinct species into
musical/virtual landscapes. My theoretical concern throughout this paper is to ask whether listening
to extinction finally valorizes the past or if it also opens new channels for constructing future nature.
Philip Armstrong (English and Cultural Studies, NZCHAS, University of Canterbury)
‘The Wonderment of this Taxonomy’: Bestiaries Old and New
The topic of this paper is the feeling of wonder provoked in us by animals — a feeling that, I will
argue, functions both as an invitation and a challenge to the organisation of our knowledge about
the nonhuman natural world. I will begin by discussing the wondrous animals appearing in a range of
pre-modern taxonomies: classical natural histories, fabulous travelogues, medieval bestiaries. I will
then briefly outline the place of wonder in the emergence of scientific and Enlightenment thought,
before jumping to the present day and analysing the role of wonder in two contemporary
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‘bestiaries’: David Attenborough’s wildlife documentary Galapagos 3D (2013), and Bruce Bagemihl’s
study of non-heteronormative behaviour amongst animals, Biological Exuberance (1999).
Cecilia Novero (German, University of Otago)
Re-collecting in natural museums: Spoerri and other artists in Vienna
“Noah’s Ark” was the title of a 2014 exhibition held in Dortmund and devoted to animals in
contemporary art. The red-thread connecting the multi-media works on view was a critical gaze on the
uses and abuses of animals, in the contemporary world of global production, consumption and
spectacle. As the title suggests, critical art is invoked here both as a means through which the exploited
animal others may be rescued, and as a site where they may find refuge first and then new beginnings,
Art is refashioned as Noah’s ark, an archetypical archive. If thus animals on the one hand appear to have
entered art as they once did the legendary Ark; on the other art has recently entered the Natural History
Museum as itself the Ark and archive where it is possible to excavate and confront the archetypical
figures of animals upon which Western human culture at large, and art within it, has built its
foundations. Where animals have profusely populated canonical art settings and institutions, from
museums to galleries, to art festivals such as Documenta in recent years, thereby receiving much
attention (Baker, Broglio, The Guardian); the few art exhibitions and interventions (e.g. films) that have
taken place in this other key institutional site of knowledge production, communication and
preservation, knowledge devoted especially to other than human life, have gone almost unnoticed. Such
lack of academic interest is particularly striking for it is here, I argue, that the archival tendency of
contemporary art (Foster) and literature (e.g. Sebald) meets with the aesthetic, philosophical and ethical
queries about animals that inform much of today’s cultural production.
My paper is part of a larger project that investigates the mining of European, and especially Germanlanguage, literary and artistic archives by those contemporary writers, filmmakers and artists who
believe the engagement with the “animal question” as essential for and in the production of ethical and
political art. The paper is based on two case studies, e.g. Yoko Tawada’s 2014 “bear” novel Etüden im
Schnee and her reading of it at the Naturkundemuseum in Berlin (January 2015), on the one hand; and
Daniel Spoerri’s 2012 exhibition at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Wien, on the other. In her novel,
Tawada offers the autobiographies of three generations in the family of Polar bear Knut. The Lesung of
the novel took place in the presence of the taxidermied bear Star who moved from Berlin Zoo to the
museum after his death. In Spoerri’s show, titled Ein inkompetenter Dialog? Spoerri paired up specimen
and documents he selected and examined in the massive archives and depots of the imperial museum,
with recent and older assemblages made of found and used objects from flea-markets such as hair,
skulls and reliquiae, assemblages which he exhumed for this occasion from his own depots and
collections. The paper illustrates how the two case studies initially seem to advocate two distinct and
perhaps conflicting ways for humans to conceive of the life and actions of non-human animals. It then
argues that in fact at closer look, both positions rely on and advocate a full immersion in the dusty
repositories of natural history, where millions of animal bodies lie submerged, anonymous, and in
silence, stored away, with no story to tell or show, precisely to rethink and tell the stories of their
entanglements in human natural history. By ways of Tawada’s anthropomorphized writing that
translates the traces of dispersed genealogies of bears into hard moving human language, and through
Spoerri’s recourse to affective collages that mark a new Territorium where human and animal life merge
with shared death to engender unexpected yet visible evolutionary variations and variants of humananimal productions, both projects are invested in exploring the material archives of natural history to
collect, indeed re-collect and re-write for the future, imaginative stories of interspecies co-habitation
and collaboration, rather than separate and competitive in-habitation. As such, both undertakings
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participate in the institutive mode of critique that --as Hal Foster suggests-- typifies contemporary
archival art, rather than reiterate the institutional critique purported in museum art.
1815-1830: Haere ra/conference close: Kirsty Dunn
1900 Dinner at KENZO Japanese restaurant for those who booked (car pooling)
Yvette Watt, Domestic Animals (Supermarket Choices), 2008
giclee print and ink on hanemuller photo rag paper
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PRESENTERS’ BIOGRAPHIES
Philip Armstrong
Philip Armstrong is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of
Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the co-director of the New Zealand Centre for
Human-Animal Studies (www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz). His most recent book, co-authored with
Annie Potts and Deidre Brown, is A New Zealand Book of Beasts: Animals in our History, Culture and
Everyday Life (Auckland University Press, 2013). His other books include What Animals Mean in the
Fiction of Modernity (Routledge, 2008) and, as co-editor, Knowing Animals (Brill, 2007). His next
book, Sheep, will be published as part of Reaktion’s Animal series in May 2016.
Melissa Boyde
Melissa Boyde is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of The Arts, English and Media at the
University of Wollongong. She is the editor of the Animal Studies Journal and series editor (with
Fiona Probyn-Rapsey) of the Animal Publics book series, Sydney University Press.
Jean Marie Carey
Jean Marie Carey studied in Miami, Florida, USA, and Munich, Germany. She holds a B.A. in Art
History, an MIS in Digital Humanities/Information Sciences and an M.A. in Art History. Her doctoral
thesis Wie Franz Marc wiederkommt (How Franz Marc Returns) uses ideas about empathy and
"deferred action" to examine Marc's corpus in the context of animal studies. Carey writes about
modern and contemporary art for journals including KAPSULA and Expressionismus, works for the
University of Otago's Disability & Information Support department; and is a member of the Sea
Shepherds international ground team.
Fiona Dalzell
Fiona first qualified from Massey University as a Veterinary Surgeon in 1985. She worked in small
animal clinical practice in New Zealand before moving to the UK. While in England she completed a
B.A. in English and Philosophy, and then honours in Philosophy. She has returned to New Zealand
and is now enrolled in a PhD in Philosophy at Canterbury University, studying moral agency in
animals. Her life partner, a spaniel called Florence, came with her to New Zealand from the UK.
Kirsty Dunn
Kirsty Dunn recently completed her MA thesis Inherit the World, Devour the Earth: Representations
of Western Meat Production and Consumption in Contemporary Fiction at the University of
Canterbury under the supervision of Associate Professors Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong. The
final chapter of her thesis "The Ultimate Me(a)taphor: Cannibalism and the Consumable Other" is
the basis of her conference paper. Kirsty has contributed a chapter to the forthcoming book
Critical Perspectives on Meat Culture, and has also had her short fiction and poetry published in
Aotearoa.
Samantha Eason
Samantha is an MA thesis student in Anthropology at the University of Canterbury. Her research is
on alternative elephant tourism, social media and elephant conservation in Thailand; a topic that
combines her own passion for travel, love of elephants, and fascination with how people use social
media.”
Amy Fletcher
Amy Fletcher joined the Political Science Department at the University of Canterbury in July
1999. Promoted to Associate Professor in 2014, Amy’s major research interests include science,
technology and environmental policy/politics and the political/intellectual history of
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biotechnology. She also has major research interests in foresight and scenario exercises and in
public engagement with science. Her book Mendel’s Ark: Biotechnology and the Future of
Extinction was published by Springer in 2014.
Sorcia Forgan
Sorcia is an academic and multimedia artist based in Christchurch who specialises in both
performance installations and illustration. After completing a BFA in Sculpture, a BA in English, and a
BA (Hons) in Cultural Studies, she undertook doctorate research in Cultural Studies.
Her dissertation involved exploring entry into the reconsideration of meaning of the embodied
subject whose figuration is defined as normal relative to prevailing hierarchies of western Cartesian
dualism. This was based on the premise that the visualisation of the body of those absented from
dominant ideological structures is necessarily limited, through the imposition of socio-political
punitive constraints that remove agency. The focus of her research analyzed the complexities
emerging from constructions of bodies marked as animal, criminal and disabled. This was examined
through both critical theory and performance in a doctorate that itself bridged the divide between
the two.
Sorcia maintains a presence in the space that occupies continued critique through both theoretical
and performative work. Freakshow: Performing Secrets and Wish: About Spaces both debuted at the
Dunedin Fringe Festival—the latter performance installation winning the award for 'Best Visual
Artist' in 2009.
Donelle Gadenne
Donelle Gadenne recently completed a Master of Arts in English at the University of Canterbury.
She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing, Editing and International Cultural Studies and
completed an Honours degree in Writing. Her background includes working for over two decades
as a veterinary nurse and she is co-author with Annie Potts of Animals in Emergencies: Learning
from the Christchurch Earthquakes (Canterbury University Press 2014). Her scholarly interests are
Critical Animal Studies and literary criticism.
Steve Glassey
Steve has been the Chief Executive Officer of Wellington SPCA since September 2015. He previously
worked for the Wellington SPCA close to two decades ago as the youngest warranted SPCA
Inspector in NZ history – he the youngest CEO in their history too. He leads a nationally recognised
organisation comprised of over 50 staff and 1,000 volunteers who care for over 6,000 animals in
the region, across it’s Newtown and Waikanae Animal Care Centres. The Wellington SPCA is also
home to the Animal Rescue Unit, the country’s first technical animal rescue team established 20
years ago and has rescued hundreds of animals from danger including the Christchurch 2011
earthquake. The Inspectorate also respond to over 900 animal welfare complaint per year and are
the only SPCA in New Zealand to provide a private veterinary hospital service to the community.
Steve's 15 years of commitment to the public safety industry have seen him rise to positions such
as: General Manager (Emergency Management & Business Continuity) at New Zealand's largest
government department - the Ministry of Social Development; Disaster Management Officer with
the United Nations; and Chief Executive of the Emergency Management Academy of New Zealand.
In 2008 Steve was awarded the prestigious Certified Emergency Manager (CEM®) credential, by the
International Association of Emergency Managers.
His skills and experience in co-ordinating a disaster response are sought after internationally and he
has responded to events such as the Samoan Tsunami (2009), H1N1 Lao PDR (2009), Typhoon
26
Katsana in South East Asia (2009), Christchurch Earthquake (2011) and Super Typhoon Haiyan,
Philippines (2013).Steve has additional national qualifications in adult education, business, urban
search & rescue, specialist rescue, outdoor recreation, fire rescue services and health and safety.
His standing internationally for technical rescue, led to him being appointed Associate Lecturer in
Technical Rescue for the University of Central Lancashire (UK) in 2013. In 2014, he along with
Constable Geoff Bray became the first New Zealander's to be awarded the prestigous
international Higgins & Langley medal for the development of the Swiftwater Recovery
Specialist training programme. He also led the development of a new series and teaching of
postgraduate qualifications in emergency management at Massey University, in his former role as
Assistant Director (Teaching) at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research. He has delivered emergency
management workshops and projects in the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, Indonesia, Laos,
Philippines, Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Thailand and the USA, and has also assisted with humanitarian
aid work in many of these countries. He is the former Chair of the CEM Commissioner for the
International Association of Emergency Managers (Oceania-Asia CEM Commission), founding and
former Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Search and Rescue and is also the Honorary Ambassador to
New Zealand for Rescue 3 International. He has peer reviewed manuscripts for the Australasian
Journal of Emergency Management, Australasian Journal of Trauma & Disaster Studies, Journal of
Contingencies and Crisis Management, Animals and Journal of Search & Rescue. He is New
Zealand's first Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society and Alumni of the Asia Pacific Programme
for Senior National Security Officers (APPSNO).
Scott Hurley
Scott Hurley is Assistant Professor of Religion at Luther College. He teaches courses on East and
South Asian religions and animal studies. He is a Sinologist who specializes in East Asian religions. His
research interests involve the intersectionality of human and nonhuman animal
exploitation/oppression, human-canine relations, human-piscine relations, and the application of
Buddhist teachings to animal liberation issues. Hurley's most recent publications include
"Engendering Empathy for Nonhuman Suffering: Using Graphic Narratives to Raise Awareness about
Commercial Dog Breeding Operations" (Antennae: the Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, 2012),
"Buddhism and Nonhuman Animals" (Lexikon der Mensch-Tier-Beziehungen, 2015), and “HumanCanine Relationships in China” (Companion Animals in Everyday Life: Situating Human-Animal
Engagement within Cultures, 2016). His current research examines how the "dog fancy" reifies social
and cultural constructions of normality for both humans and canines.
Jessica Ison
Jessica Ison is a PhD Candidate at La Trobe University, Melbourne. She is the representative for the
Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Oceania and the Chair of the Intersectional Research
Collaborative. Jess was the 2014 ICAS Tyke Scholar of the year. Currently, she is tutoring in Legal
Studies and working with the Coalition Against Duck Shooting in Victoria.
Maddie Judge
Maddie Judge is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Management and Marketing
at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She recently completed a PhD in social psychology at
Victoria University of Wellington and her thesis explored the psychological and ideological
foundations of vegetarianism, veganism and meat consumption in Western cultures. Her broad
research interests include the social psychology of consumer behaviour, ethical consumption,
discursive and rhetorical psychology, gift-giving, and ideology and social change.
27
Kara Kennedy
Kara Kennedy is a PhD Candidate in English at the University of Canterbury focusing on an analysis
of gender in American science fiction novels from the 1960s and 70s.
Nichola Kriek
Nichola Kriek has worked as a humane educator in New Zealand since 1994. Creating awareness of
the human-animal relationship in order to promote a more compassionate and caring existence for
animals has been the main aim in her work. Initially, Nichola worked for Wellington SPCA where
she developed and delivered an outreach programme for schools and community groups, produced
and published a children’s magazine, ran an active junior SPCA members club and implemented an
animal-assisted therapy programme. Nichola joined Save Animals From Exploitation Inc (SAFE), as
Education Officer in 2004. In this new role she extended the scope of humane education in order to
reach a national audience. In 2007 SAFE launched ‘Animals & Us’, a humane education programme
designed specifically for secondary schools. The aim of this programme is to create a humane
education framework that advances knowledge and critical thinking about the relationship
between humans and non-human animals, while fostering attitudes and values of compassion,
respect and empathy. Four comprehensive textbooks have been produced and distributed to New
Zealand secondary schools. The response has been overwhelmingly positive by both teachers and
students alike.
Piers Locke
Piers Locke is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Canterbury, where he is a
member of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (NZCHAS) and the New Zealand
South Asia Centre (NZSAC). Specializing in human-elephant relations, he has conducted fieldwork on
captive elephant management in Nepal, on human-elephant conflict and elephant rehabilitation in
Sri Lanka, and archival research on the historical photography of elephants in colonial South Asia.
Piers has developed an integrated programme for investigating human-elephant relations called
ethnoelephantology, he is editor of the book “Rethinking Human-Elephant Relations in South Asia”
forthcoming from Oxford University Press, and he also writes and teaches on multispecies
ethnography.
Alison Loveridge
Alison Loveridge's research interests are in rural change/innovation, rural autobiography and
animal welfare, with a strong interest in sociological methodology. Current research concerns
perceptions of animal welfare and farming in New Zealand. I am also interested in the
transformation of the rural landscape in high risk areas such as the Mackenzie Basin with animal
welfare implications.
Susan McHugh
Susan McHugh is Professor of English at the University of New England, USA. She is the author of
Animal Stories: Narrating across Species Lines (Minnesota, 2011) as well as Dog (Reaktion, 2004).
With Garry Marvin, she co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies (2014), and,
with Robert McKay, Literary Animals Look, a special issue of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in
Visual Culture (2013). Presently, McHugh is completing a book-length study of contemporary
narratives of biological and cultural extinction.
Linda Madden
Linda Madden is a life-long animal lover who is fortunate enough to be researching some of these
non-human friends as part of her PhD. Linda's research focuses on spaces of encounter between
animals and humans in Auckland City. Research is framed by the idea of 'boundaries' which are
28
constructed to separate species, and how these are transgressed through both animal agency and
interspecies bonds. Her case studies include the Auckland Zoo, stray cats in public space(s) and
Linda's own intimate and personal relationship with her dogs.
Henrietta Mondry
Henrietta Mondry is Professor in the Departments of Global, Cultural and Languages Studies and
Engish, and Fellow at the New Zealand Royal Society since 2009. She has published widely. Her
recent books are Exemplary Bodies: Constructing the Jew in Russian culture, since 1880s (2010)
and Political Animals: Representing Dogs in Modern Russian Culture (2015).
Mary Murray
Mary Murray is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Massey University, Palmerston North. Her research
and teaching interests focus on the relationship between animals and humans, and death and
dying. Recent publications have focused on animals and slavery; the representation of animal death
in the media; xenotransplantation; near death experiences; and extraordinary experiences in grief
and bereavement. She is currently completing a book for SAGE about bereavement and grief and is
involved in the development of an International Animal Cruelty Index. Mary has also served on the
Board of SAFE, and was voluntary coordinator for SAFE in the Manawatu/Palmerston North for
over a decade.
Yamini Narayanan
Yamini Narayanan is ARC DECRA Research Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute, Deakin
University. Her research examines explores the significant and yet invisible role of animals in city
building, and the complicity of urban religion in enabling animal exploitation for urban
development. Her book Religion, Heritage and the Sustainable City: Hinduism and Urbanisation in
Jaipur (Routledge) was published in 2015, and edited volume Religion and Urbanism:
Reconceptualising Sustainable Cities in South Asia is forthcoming (Routledge, 2016).
Cecilia Novero
Cecilia Novero has a doctoral degree in German Studies from the University of Chicago (USA). After
positions held at various academic institutions in the US, she joined the University of Otago (NZ) in
2008. Her book entitled Antidiets of the Avant-Garde: From Futurist Cooking to Eat Art (UMP 2010)
examines the temporal relations between the historical Avant-garde and the Neo-Avant-Garde
through an analysis of food incorporation and consumption. Cecilia has published on Dada,
Viennese Actionism, FLUXUS, artists Daniel Spoerri and Antoni Miralda, the cultural and aesthetic
history of food, travel writing, and German and European film. Recently, Cecilia's research has
turned to "animal studies". Cecilia considers how non-human animals have been represented in the
visual arts, including but not limited to cinema, and literary texts. Her main concern is first to
disclose the limitations of modern and contemporary human ways of seeing and looking in art and
film, and, second, to point to works in which attempts are made to grapple with and overcome
these very same limitations and, consequently --and foremost-- canonical regimes of vision.
Pamela Peters
Growing up with Golden Guernsies in the pastures and golden retrievers at home in Wisconsin,
Pamela went on to teach English in Japan and California before commencing her current lecturer
stint at IPU NZ Tertiary Institute in Palmerston North in 2002. After teaching Foundation English
and Computing for ten years, she migrated to the Diploma programme, where she divides her
classroom time amongst English, Tourism, and the Anthrozoology (Human-Animal Studies) papers
she began developing in 2007. Pamela received her MA TESOL from the Middlebury Institute of
International Studies at Monterey (California), and her BA in psychology and music from Luther
College (Decorah, Iowa).
29
Justine Philip
Justine Philip is a PhD candidate in Ecosystem Management, University of New England, NSW. Her
thesis is titled “Traversing the barrier fence; exploring the cultural life and afterlife of the Canis
dingo.” The research is based in human-animal studies and environmental history, exploring areas
of wildlife conflict and cultural identity. Justine has a BSc in Scientific Photography (RMIT), and
Masters in Animal Science (University of Melbourne). She lives in Melbourne with a number of
wildlife, including her three teenage children, and dingoes Frieda and Diego.
Annie Potts
Annie Potts is an associate professor in Cultural Studies at the University of Canterbury, and codirector of the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies (www.nzchas.canterbury.ac.nz). She
is the author of Chicken (Reaktion, 2012) and The Science/Fiction of Sex: Feminist Deconstruction
and the Vocabularies of Heterosex (Routledge, 2002). She is also a co-author, along with Philip
Armstrong and Deidre Brown, of A New Zealand Book of Beasts: Animals in Our Culture, History and
Everyday Life (Auckland University Press, 2013); and, along with Donelle Gadenne, Animals in
Emergencies: Learning from the Christchurch Earthquakes (Canterbury University Press, 2014).
Annie is also the editor of Meat Culture (Brill Human-Animal Studies Series, forthcoming 2016). Her
current research interests include: animal advocacy in disasters; gender, sexuality and ethical
consumption; and the extension of the New Carnivore Movement into non-gastronomic cultural
domains.
Karishma Ram
Karishma is an animal rights advocate who speaks publically about issues such as abolitionist
veganism, vegan animal rights activism and human rights activism from an intersectional
perspective. She is affiliated with Total Liberation Christchurch, a local group promoting abolitionist
veganism and intersectionality that does not engage with single issue campaigns. She has a
Bachelor of Engineering degree from University of Canterbury and works in Christchurch as an
electrical engineer.
Janet Sayers
Dr Janet Sayers is an Associate Professor (from 1 Jan 2016) in the School of Management, Massey
University, Albany Campus, PB 102 904, Auckland, NZ. P: +64 9 4140800 E: [email protected].
She has lately become interested in challenging management and organisational studies to
question their implicit and exclusive humanism.
Tanja Schwalm
Dr Tanja Schwalm received a PhD from the University of Canterbury for her thesis entitled Animal
Writing: Magical Realism and the Posthuman Other. Her interests include the ways in which animal
practices such as animal farming, the circus, the rodeo and the zoo influence fictional and cultural
representations of animals and vice versa; developing productive approaches to reading animals;
human-animal relationships in the context of global warming; posthumanism; overcoming the idea
of non-human animal otherness; and the role of academics as animal advocates.
Tanja has been involved with SAFE (Save Animals From Exploitation) as a volunteer since 2002.
She currently works as a research assistant at the University of Canterbury with a focus on New
Zealand literature and culture.
30
Angela Singer
Angela Singer is an artist concerned with the ethical and epistemological consequences of humans
using nonhuman life and the role that humans play in the exploitation and destruction of animals
and our environment. Her works have been exhibited at ArtNowNY, New York, Universcience Cité
des sciences et de l’industrie, Paris, Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Poland, Royal West of
England Academy, UK, La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, Strychnin Gallery, Berlin, Musei Civici,
Palazzo S. Francesco, Italy, Kensington Palace, London. In January 2016 she will have works in Dead
Animals group exhibition at Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence.
Combining mixed-media with “recycled” vintage taxidermy she aims to turn taxidermic meaning.
She incorporates into the look of her work some of the history of the death of the animal. She is
not a taxidermist and has never had an animal taxidermied for her art, nor had a living creature
killed or harmed for her art. She will not use living creatures in her art.
Singer’s work has been discussed and featured in a variety of publications; recent books include
The Art of the Animal (2015), Routledge Handbook of Human-Animal Studies (2014), A New Zealand
Book of Beasts: Animals in Our Culture, History and Everyday Life (2013), Artist Animal (2013); The
Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing (2012); The Art of Taxidermy (2012); Art and
Animals (2011); Considering Animals: Contemporary Studies in Human–Animal Relations (2011).
Her work has appeared in Antennae: Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, UK; Modern Painters arts
journal; The Independent and The Guardian newspapers, UK; NY Arts magazine; and Juxtapoz.
Singer received an MFA from the University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2002. She is based in
Wellington, New Zealand. www.angelasinger.com
Jamie Steer
Dr Jamie Steer recently completed his PhD thesis in Environmental Science at the University of
Auckland. His thesis explored understandings of introduced species in New Zealand in the context
of biodiversity management, arguing for a more reconciliatory approach to their history and fate in
the country. This work is presently being adapted for publication. Jamie previously worked as an
ecologist for an environmental design consultancy. He has an MSc in ecology from Victoria
University of Wellington and has published studies on the behavioural ecology of New Zealand
robins. Dr Steer currently works as a Senior Advisor for the Biodiversity Department at Greater
Wellington Regional Council.
Nicholas Taylor
After starting as a Volunteer with Wellington SPCA, Nicholas Taylor found that working with
animals was a passion that had previously been unknown. Very soon a ‘caregivers’ job came up as a
‘puppy handler’ and Nick decided to completely change his career and future options thus leaving
behind study, a background in hospitality and a job offer with an Insurance Company to begin his
minimum wage role caring for pups. Working with animals and animal welfare is not all puppy and
bunny hugging but Nick found he could make a real difference. Less than two years after starting as
a volunteer, Nick found himself managing the SPCA animals and caregiver team. Now as Animal
Care and Adoptions Manager, Nick has been with Wellington SPCA over 9 years and has been
involved in a number of dramatic changes and improvements that have improved the outcomes
and welfare of large number of animals in both the Wellington region but also New Zealand. While
Nick and his team at Wellington are heavily involved with daily animal care and adoptions of the
animals in care, Nick understands that to make a real difference for the animals in the community,
the Prevention side of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals always needs to be
considered and that means there is always a strong need to focus on responsible pet ownership
and education in the community as well as the desexing of animals.
31
Michael-John Turp
Michael-John is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Canterbury. Much of his research
focuses on moral theory, including meta-ethics, normative ethics, and moral psychology. As well as
working on the ethics of de-extinction project, he is currently supervising a Ph.D. project on the
extent of moral agency in (non-human) animals and investigating Humean approaches to applied
animal ethics. Other research interests include the relationship between reason and the emotions,
and the history of philosophy (especially Ancient and Early Modern).
Yvette Watt
Dr Yvette Watt is a Lecturer in Fine Art at the Tasmanian College of the Arts, University of
Tasmania. She is a committee member of Minding Animals Australia and Co-Director of the Faculty
of the Arts Environment Research Group.
Watt’s art practice spans 30 years. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections
including Parliament House, Canberra, Artbank and the Art Gallery of WA. Watt has been actively
involved in animal advocacy since the mid 1980s, including being a founder of Against Animal
Cruelty Tasmania (now Animals Tasmania) and her artwork is heavily informed by her activism.
Watt is a co-editor of, and contributor to the collection titled Considering Animals: Contemporary
Studies in Human-Animal Relations, Carol Freeman, Elizabeth Leanne and Yvette Watt (eds),
Ashgate, 2011. Other essays include ‘Artists, Animals and Ethics’ in Antennae issue 19, 2011 and
‘Animal Factories: Exposing Sites of Capture’ in Captured: Animals Within Culture, Melissa Boyde,
(ed), Palgrave McMillan, 2014.
Yvette Watt, Nine Lives #1, 2001
Oil on 9 panels, Overall size 46 x 59.5cm
32
Notes
33
Notes
34
Notes

here - New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies

Transcription

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