Current News
NZCHAS ASSOCIATE EXAMINES ETHICS OF BROILER CHICKEN FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND
Dr Michael Morris from Marine and Environmental Management at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic has just published an article called “The Ethics and Politics of Animal Welfare in New Zealand: Broiler Chicken Production as a Case Study’ in the prestigious Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics (Volume 22, 2009, pp. 15-30).
In this article, Morris argues that, while there are many causes of poor welfare in broiler chickens (chickens bred for meat), the most significant factor is genotype. In other words, broiler chickens have been selectively bred to grow faster and bigger (to produce meat quicker) at the expense of the birds’ health and well-being. Rapid growth in broiler chickens causes (amongst other things) the birds’ muscles to outgrow their skeletons resulting in lameness, leg fractures and chronic pain. Morris investigates the attitudes of government to broiler chicken welfare issues, ultimately arguing that improvements to the lives of chickens grown for meat in this country might only be possible under an independent animal welfare advisory service.
For more details contact: Michael.Morris@boppoly.ac.nz
PUBLICATION OF BOOK ON ANIMAL LAW IN NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA
Animal Law in Australasia, co-edited by NZCHAS associate Peter Sankoff, has just been published by Federation press.
The original laws protecting animals from human mistreatment arose from community concern in the 19th century, and today community expectations are even higher. Most Australians and New Zealanders assume that their animal welfare laws still provide sufficient protection for animals, that cruelty is the exception and that, when exposed, the perpetrators are prosecuted. They are wrong on all counts.
This book is a scholarly examination of the legal relationship between humans and animals in Australia and New Zealand. It asks whether existing laws really do protect animals, and, where the law comes up short, how it could be improved. The questions explored go beyond animal welfare and challenge the reader to think about the nature of legal interests, and practical and ethical contexts for a range of laws.
Australian, New Zealand and international academics and practitioners cover topics ranging from core concepts and theoretical questions around “animal welfare” and law, to specific matters of concern: animal cruelty sentencing, live animal export, recreational hunting, and commercial uses of animals in farming and research.
Animal Law in Australasia can be purchased online from www.federationpress.com.au
NZCHAS COURSE WINS 2008 INTERNATIONAL ANIMALS AND SOCIETY COURSE AWARD: 
Dr Annie Potts, Co-Director of NZCHAS, has won the 2008 award for best established course in the field of animals and society. Dr Potts's course, "From Bambi to Kong: The Animal in American Popular Culture", was chosen from a field of international applicants by the judging panel from the Humane Society of the United States. The awards recognize excellence in courses concerning the human-animal bond, human obligations toward animals, the status of animals, and related topics. Past recipients have included scholars working in academic fields including animal science, animal-assisted therapy, anthropology, archeology, art, biology, communications, culture studies, education, environmental studies, ethology, history, law, literature, medicine, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, sociology and veterinary medicine.
Judges use criteria such as depth and rigor within the topic, impact on the field of human-animal studies, and originality of approach. Competitive entries for the awards would be courses that bring the study of animals and society into new arenas; approach the field from a novel perspective, or make use of novel teaching methods; provide exposure to students who would not otherwise address academic issues relating to animals and society; or are tailored to participants whose learning experience will have a direct impact upon animals and/or animal protection.
NZ CENTRE FOR HUMAN-ANIMAL STUDIES SUMMER SCHOLARSHIP
NZCHAS was fortunate this year to be awarded a Summer Scholarship from the University of Canterbury. Several students applied for the opportunity to spend the university break over summer working on a project in the field of HAS. The successful applicant was Jovian Parry, a Cultural Studies Honours student specializing in Human-Animal Studies. Jovian has taken all the papers offered in the HAS stream in the College of Arts and is has most recently completed extended research on slaughter narratives in popular culture. The project he will be working on during the tenure of his Summer Scholarship is titled: “Animal abuse as an indicator of domestic violence: Studying ‘the link’ in the context of New Zealand”. Specifically Jovian will be comparing local and international findings on ‘the link’, and identifying knowledge gaps in the context of New Zealand.
SPECIAL ISSUE OF FEMINISM & PSYCHOLOGY
NZCHAS Co-Director Annie Potts is to edit a special issue of Feminism & Psychology journal on the theme of "Feminism, Psychology and the Nonhuman Other":
Feminism & Psychology Special Issue
“Feminism, Psychology, and the Nonhuman Other”
Edited by Annie Potts
CALL FOR PAPERS
Feminist psychology analyzes how certain marginalized groups and individuals have been (mis)represented, exploited and ‘othered’ within traditional psychological models and discourses. To date, much less attention has been paid to the ways in which nonhuman others have been similarly subjugated and exploited within psychology (and its various sub-disciplines), and also within feminist theory and politics. This Special Issue concentrates on the question of the nonhuman animal within feminism and psychology.
Contributions are invited from feminist and other critical scholars on the following topics:
- Anthropocentric and gendered assumptions about nonhuman animals within psychological and/or feminist models and theories
- The use of nonhuman animals in psychology education and research laboratories
- Constructions of animality and humanity (also nature and culture, the ‘primitive’ and the ‘civilized’) in evolutionary psychology and/or natural history (including wildlife documentaries, natural history museums, zoological exhibitions etc)
- Gender and primatology
- Animals, gender and sexuality
- The link between animal abuse and social violence
- Gender and vegetarianism (and/or gender and meat-eating)
- Anthropocentrism and species-ism
- Gender and animal advocacy (or animal rights)
For this Special Issue we seek:
Scholarly articles of 5000-8000 words (including references)
Shorter observations and commentaries, addressing issues and experiences from research or activism. Normal length: 2,000 words (including references)
All articles will undergo the usual peer review process. Authors are advised to consult the 'Notes to Contributors' (online at http://fap.sagepub.com or on the inside back cover of the journal). Please contact Annie Potts with any queries. Manuscripts should also be sent by email to:
Annie Potts
Co-Director, New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies
University of Canterbury
P.B. 4800
Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand
Email: annie.potts@canterbury.ac.nz
Closing date for submissions: 28 February 2009.
Congratulations to NZCHAS member Claire Hero, whose poetry chapbook, afterpastures, won the 2007 Caketrain Chapbook Competition. The poems in afterpastures explore human-animal relationships and the effect of livestock production on natural landscapes. The chapbook will be released in May 2008, and can be ordered from www.caketrain.org.
PUBLICATION OF BOOK ON ANIMALS IN MODERN FICTION
January 2008 saw the publication by Routledge of What Animals Mean in the Fiction of Modernity, by NZCHAS Co-Director Philip Armstrong.
What Animals Mean begins by examining the function of animals and animal representations in four classic novels: Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Frankenstein and Moby Dick. The later chapters then explore how these stories have been re-worked, in ways that reflect shifting social and environmental forces, by later novelists including H G Wells, D H Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Brigid Brophy, Bernard Malamud, Will Self, Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel and J M Coetzee.
Read the transcript of an interview with Philip Armstrong about this book on Australia's ABC National Radio.
Read more on this topic in UC Chronicle Vol 43 no 4, p. 7.
Order What Animals Mean by Philip Armstrong
Archived News and Events
Launch of New Human-Animal Studies Resource for Schools: Teachers and educators at all levels are invited to attend the launch on July 2 2008 in Auckland of a major new human-animal studies resource for schools published by Animals & Us ... [more]
FULL-DAY WORKSHOP ON ANIMALS AND AGRICULTURE
Reflecting on our Relationships: Animals and Agriculture
University of Auckland,
Friday 18th July 2008
Registrations are invited for this workshop, to be held in the Federation of University Women Seminar Room, Upstairs in the Old Government House building at the University of Auckland.
Download timetable, including details of speakers and paper titles.
Download registration form.
For more details contact NZCHAS associate Dr Natalie Lloyd.
NZCHAS ON RADIO NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL
NZCHAS Co-Directors Annie Potts and Philip Armstrong featured on Radio New Zealand National's "Ideas" programme on 9 December 2007, a feature about Human-Animal Relations. The programme was described as follows:
"
Inarguably, New Zealand’s identity and economy owes much to our agricultural background. As the saying goes, this country’s prosperity was built “off the sheep’s back”. And of late, New Zealand has acquired a reputation as a country that works hard to save its endangered animal species, and supports moves to protect similarly endangered animals overseas. But as our environmental awareness has changed over time, is it correct to assume that our treatment of our less exotic animals has changed as well? Agriculture, which continues to be hugely important in our economy and culture, also accounts for the majority of all animal testing in New Zealand. And while we are enthusiastic pet-owners, our record of cruelty towards them is the equal of anywhere in the Western World.
This contradiction in our attitudes has been charted in a recent study conducted by the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies at Canterbury University. The study records the emergence of a group of people who identify themselves as cruelty-free consumers. They reject the picture of intensive farming, meat-eating and wearing animal products, and what they consider to be the false image of New Zealand as a “clean, green” paradise, and significantly, they are spending their money elsewhere.
Is this growing sense of disquiet highlighting a division in this country between traditional values and an emerging culture of animal ethicists? Could our treatment of animals have wider implications for the nature of our society? Why have some of us stopped riding on the sheep’s back?"
To download a podcast of this programme, go to http://radiotime.com/program/p_57495/Ideas_(RNZ).aspx and scroll down to "9 December 2007"
AUGUST 2007:
VEGANSEXUALITY IN THE NEWS
NZCHAS researchers made headlines recently for noting that a number of vegetarians and vegans participating in a study on cruelty-free consumption in New Zealand preferred to be in intimate relationships with other vegetarians and vegans.
The term ‘vegansexuality' was coined by Dr Annie Potts after identifying a very small number of informants who refused on ethical grounds to have intimate relations with non-vegetarians: “Vegans are committed to cruelty-free lifestyles, and for some this extends into the realm of relationships and sexuality. Vegansexuality is therefore a disposition (or inclination, or preference) towards those who practice a cruelty-free lifestyle. It is an embodied ethical form of sexuality”.
The connection between food and sex is not a new phenomenon. Dr Potts suggests a spectrum exists in relation to cruelty-free consumption and sexual relationships: “At one end of the spectrum, vegansexuality entails an increased likelihood of sexual attraction towards those who do not consume animals or animal products. At the other end, it manifests as a strong sexual aversion to the bodies of those who consume animals and animal products; for these people, avoidance of sexual intimacy with omnivorous bodies is manifesting at a much more visceral level.”
For more information on the findings of this study, contact Annie Potts.
MAY 2007:
RELEASE OF REPORT ON ETHICAL CONSUMPTION IN NZ
The NZCHAS is pleased to release a report on a nationwide survey on cruelty-free consumption. This study, conducted between August and December last year, was undertaken as part of a larger project on human-animal interactions in New Zealand, funded by a Royal Society of NZ Marsden grant. Volunteers completed 14-page surveys asking for their opinions on a range of topics including meat-eating, horse-racing, battery farming, hunting and fishing, and Wild Foods Festivals. Over 150 people participated from throughout New Zealand. The report provides detailed accounts of the experiences and perspectives of vegetarians, vegans and other ethical consumers living in New Zealand. (Word, 690KB) (PDF, 585KB)
For information, contact annie.potts@canterbury.ac.nz
PUBLICATION OF KNOWING ANIMALS
The launch of NZCHAS also coincides with the publication of a collection of essays in Human-Animal Studies called Knowing Animals edited by NZCHAS Co-Director, Philip Armstrong, and Laurence Simmons from the University of Auckland. The volume includes essays on animals in philosophy, literature, painting, environmental discourse, science, the circus, TV, cinema and popular culture. Contributors include Brian Boyd, Ian Wedde, Allan Smith, Helen Tiffin, Barbara Creed, Rick de Vos, Catharina Landstrom, Alphonso Lingis, as well as three NZCHAS members - Philip Armstrong, Annie Potts , and Tanja Schwalm
For information contact: philip.armstrong@canterbury.ac.nz