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This book addresses the persistence of meat consumption and the use of animals as food in spite of significant challenges to their environmental and ethical legitimacy. Drawing on Foucault’s regime of power/knowledge/pleasure, and theorizations of the gaze, it identifies what contributes to the persistent edibility of ‘food’ animals even, and particularly, as this edibility is increasingly critiqued. Beginning with the question of how animals, and their bodies, are variously mapped by humans according to their use value, it gradually unpacks the roots of our domination of ‘food’ animals – a domination distinguished by the literal embodiment of the ‘other’. The logics of this embodied domination are approached in three inter-related parts that explore, respectively, how knowledge, sensory and emotional associations, and visibility work together to render animal’s bodies as edible flesh. The book concludes by exploring how to more effectively challenge the ‘entitled gaze’ that maintains ‘food’ animals as persistently edible.
The life and times of the Smart Wife--feminized digital assistants who are friendly and sometimes flirty, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on ot...
The robots are coming! So too is the ‘age of automation’, the march of ‘invasive’ species, more intense natural disasters, and a potential cataclysm of other unprecedented events and phenomena of which we do not yet know, and cannot predict. This book is concerned with how to account for these non-humans and their effects within theories of social practice. In particular, this provocative collection tackles contemporary debates about the roles, relations and agencies of constantly changing, disruptive, intelligent or otherwise 'dynamic' non-humans, such as weather, animals and automated devices. In doing so contributors challenge and take forward existing understandings of dynamic non-humans in theories of social practice by reconsidering their potential roles in everyday life. The book will benefit sociology, geography, science and technology studies, and human- (and animal-) computer interaction design scholars seeking to make sense of the complex entanglement of non-human phenomena and things in the performance of social practices.
Animal Activism On and Off Screen examines the relationship between animal advocacy and the film and television industries. Leading scholars, activists, and film industry professionals critically analyse the ways in which animal activism has been represented inside and outside film and television programs in relation to the politics of celebrity, vegan, and animal activism. Case studies include UK, US, and German television crime fiction, feature-length advocacy documentaries such as Blackfish (2013), The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013), The Animal People (2019) and Meat the Future (2020); fiction films such as Okja (2017) and Cloud Atlas (2012); as well as celebrity chefs, French activism and celebrity activists Pamela Anderson, Joaquin Phoenix and James Cromwell. By exploring three key aspects of the current context for animal rights: representations of activism on screen; activist texts and their reception; and celebrity vegans and animal advocates, Animal Activism On and Off Screen evaluates the efficacy of advocacy narratives in film and on television, and offers important insights intended to inform animal advocacy strategies and campaigns.
The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures celebrates a literary genre already over 500 years old. Specially commissioned essays from established and emerging international scholars reflect the vibrancy of utopian vision, and its resiliency as idea, genre, and critical mode. Covering politics, environment, geography, body and mind, and social organization, the volume surveys current research and maps new areas of study. The chapters include investigations of anarchism, biopolitics, and postcolonialism and study film, art, and literature. Each essay considers central questions and key primary works, evaluates the most recent research, and outlines contemporary debates. Literatures of Africa, Australia, China, Latin America, and the Middle East are discussed in this global, cross-disciplinary, and comprehensive volume.
Urban sustainability citizenship situates citizens as social change agents with an ethical and self-interested stake in living sustainably with the rest of Earth. Such citizens not only engage in sustainable household practices but respect the importance of awareness raising, discussion and debates on sustainability policies for the common good and maintenance of Earth’s ecosystems. Sustainability Citizenship in Cities seeks to explain how sustainability citizenship can manifest in urban built environments as both responsibilities and rights. Contributors elaborate on the concept of urban sustainability citizenship as a participatory work-in-progress with the aim of setting its practice fi...
"Green Meat? takes a multifaceted approach to the issues of industrialized agricultural production and its relationship to climate change. It argues that one singular solution to this problem would undermine the myriad of ways that meat is consumed across regional and cultural lines. Although meat may always be a global staple of the human diet, it is not too late to re-examine current food systems through the framework of sustainability and ecological prosperity." Alternatives Journal
This book advances the practice and theory of design ethnography. It presents a methodologically adventurous and conceptually robust approach to interventional and ethical research design, practice and engagement. The authors, specialising in design ethnography across the fields of anthropology, sociology, human geography, pedagogy and design research, draw on their extensive international experience of collaborating with engineers, designers, creative practitioners and specialists from other fields. They call for, and demonstrate the benefits of, ethnographic and conceptual attention to design as part of our personal and public everyday lives, society, institutions and activism. Design Ethnography is essential reading for researchers, scholars and students seeking to reshape the way we research, live and design ethically and responsibly into yet unknown futures.
What is the role of popular culture in shaping our discourse about the multifaceted system of material things, subjects and causal agents that we call "environment"? Ecocritical Geopolitics offers a new theoretical perspective and approach to the analysis of environmental discourse in popular culture. It combines ecocriticial and critical geopolitical approaches to explore three main themes: dystopian visions, the relationship between the human, post-human, and "nature" and speciesism and carnism. The importance of popular culture in the construction of geopolitical discourse is widely recognized. From ecocriticism, we also appreciate that literature, cinema, or theatre can offer a mirror of...
This book provides an insight into the everyday lives and experiences of people who live with dogs as companions; and glimpses aspects of the lives of the dogs who share their homes. It is framed sociologically and as such, considers the various forms of power relations which shape the lives of those kept as pets and their human owners. In recounting stories of companion humans and dogs, the co-constituted quality of life is clear. However, while dogs – as agential beings with needs, desires and a point of view – are able to shape outcomes and change aspects of their lived experience, the world they inhabit is profoundly geared to human inhabitants; and the most privileged ones at that. ...