Ethics and Animal Ethnography

In May 2020, Wesleyan Animal Studies convened a workshop, co-sponsored by the Brooks Institute to discuss many of the ethical issues that arise in immersive ethnographic research with animals.  The working paper below was produced to deepen conversations about ethics in multi-disciplinary, multi-species ethnographic work.

Final Ethics and Animal Ethnography

About the Organizers:

Lori Gruen

 William Griffin Professor of Philosophy, Coordinator of Wesleyan Animal Studies
Wesleyan University 

Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University where she is coordinator of Wesleyan Animal Studies.  She is the author and editor of 11 books, including Entangled Empathy (Lantern, 2015); Critical Terms for Animal Studies (Chicago, 2018) and animaladies (Bloomsbury, 2018); Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2011, second edition in progress) and Ethics of Captivity (Oxford, 2014).

Gruen’s work lies at the intersection of ethical and political theory and practice, with a particular focus on issues that impact those often overlooked in traditional ethical investigations, e.g. women, people of color, incarcerated people, non-human animals.  She is currently working on topics that inform carceral logics, drawing on the black intellectual tradition, as well as legal scholarship and social theory, she is thinking through a complex set of issues like dignity, self-respect, empathy, disposability, and hope and hopelessness.

Gruen has been involved in animal issues as a writer, teacher, and activist for over 25 years. Her relationships with scholars thinking about animals, activists working to protect animals, and, perhaps most importantly, with many different animals, uniquely inform her perspective on how we need to rethink our engagement with other animals.  She has published extensively on topics in animal ethics and ecofeminism and has become known as a bit of an archivist for chimpanzees in the US given her work documenting the history of The First 100 chimpanzees in research in the US (http://first100chimps.wesleyan.edu) and the journey to sanctuary of the remaining chimpanzees in research labs, The Last 1000 (http://last1000chimps.com).

Elan Abrell

 Visiting Assistant Professor in Animal Studies, Wesleyan University
and Adjunct Lecturer in Animal Studies, New York University

Elan Abrell is a cultural anthropologist whose research and writing focus on human-environment interactions, scientific knowledge production, and technological innovation in the contemporary United States. His forthcoming ethnography of animal sanctuaries, Saving Animals: Practices of Care and Rescue in the US Animal Sanctuary Movement (University of Minnesota Press), examines how sanctuary caregivers respond to a range of ethical dilemmas and material constraints while attempting to meet the various and sometimes conflicting needs of rescued animals. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Animal Studies at Wesleyan University and an Adjunct Lecturer in Animal Studies at New York University. He was also a 2017-18 Farmed Animal Law & Policy Fellow at the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard University and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College, CUNY.

About the Workshop Participants:

Rosemary Collard

Assistant Professor in Geography, Simon Fraser University

Rosemary Collard is a human geographer and political ecologist whose research aims to develop political economic explanations for what scientists call defaunation. She combines primary field research with critical theory – especially feminist and postcolonial political economy, environmental justice, ecofeminism, and animal studies – to investigate how colonialism and capitalism have shaped animal life and relations between people and animals, especially wildlife. She has an ongoing project tracking the global exotic pet trade, and a new project on woodland caribou extirpation. She is an assistant professor in geography at Simon Fraser University and an editor of the journal EPE: Nature and Space. Her book Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade is forthcoming with Duke University Press.  She edited Critical animal geographies: Politics, intersections and hierarchies in a multispecies world (Routledge, 2015) with Katie Gillespie.

Hilary Cunningham

Cultural Antropologist, and Canadian Novelist

Hilary Cunningham (Scharper) is a cultural anthropologist and a Canadian novelist. Her academic work centers on boundary-making as itself a multi-faceted encounter with “nature”—one which ultimately generates certain types of human-nature interactions while excluding or marginalizing other kinds. Her current research on human and animal sanctuaries utilizes sensory, visual and other arts-based methodologies, and explores multispecies entanglements in the context of “gated ecologies,” “corridors of care,” and “structural compassion.” 

Hilary also publishes literary fiction and is associated with a newly-minted subgenre of the Gothic called the “ecoGothic.” Literary scholars have described this as a “more ecologically aware Gothic,” attuned to the roles estrangement, alienation and wounding play in shaping responses to the agency of the natural world. Her current work entails a collection of short stories on animal “companions,” as well as a five-volume project on the sentient landscapes of The Great Lakes. The first volume in the series, Perdita  was published by Simon&Schuster, Source Books USA, La Court Echelle (French-language edition) in 2013 and 2015.

Jane Desmond

Professor, Anthropology and Gender and Women’s Studies

Jane Desmond is a Professor in Anthropology and Gender and Women’s Studies. Her primary areas of interest focus on issues of embodiment, display, and social identity, as well as the transnational dimensions of U.S. Studies. Her areas of expertise include performance studies, critical theory, visual culture (including museum studies and tourism studies), the critical analysis of the U.S. in global perspectives, and, most recently, the political economy of human/animal relations. She has previously worked as a modern dancer and choreographer, and in film, video, and the academy.

Augustin Fuentes

Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame

Agustín Fuentes, trained in Zoology and Anthropology, is the Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. His research delves into the how and why of being human. Ranging from chasing monkeys in jungles and cities, to exploring the lives of our evolutionary ancestors, to examining what people actually do across the globe, Professor Fuentes is interested in both the big questions and the small details of what makes humans and our closest relatives tick. He has published more than 150 peer reviewed articles and chapters, authored or edited 22 books and a three-volume encyclopedia, and conducted research across four continents and two-million years of human history. His current explorations include the roles of creativity and imagination in human evolution, multispecies anthropology, evolutionary theory, and the structures of race and racism. Fuentes is an active public scientist, a well-known blogger, lecturer, tweeter and a writer and explore for National Geographic. Fuentes’ recent books include Race, Monogamy, and other lies they told you: busting myths about human nature (U of California, 2012), The Creative Spark: how imagination made humans exceptional (Dutton, 2017), and Why We Believe: evolution and the human way of being (Yale, 2019). Professor Fuentes will be joining the Princeton University faculty in July of 2020.

Katie Gillespie

Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Kentucky, Department of Geography and the Applied Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program

Kathryn Gillespie is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Geography and the Applied Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program. She is the author of The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 [University of Chicago Press, 2018]. She has also published in a number of scholarly journals and edited collections and is co-editor of three books: Vulnerable Witness: The Politics of Grief in the Field [University of California Press, 2018, co-edited with Patricia J. Lopez]; Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, Intersections and Hierarchies in a Multispecies World [Routledge, 2015, co-edited with Rosemary-Claire Collard]; and Economies of Death: Economic Logics of Killable Life and Grievable Death [Routledge, 2015, co-edited with Patricia J. Lopez]. She was an Animal Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Wesleyan University from 2016 to 2018.

Colin Jerolomack

Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies
and chair of the Environmental Studies Department, New York University

Colin Jerolmack is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at New York University. He received his PhD in sociology from the City University of New York, then was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Fellowship at Harvard University. His interests include Community and Urban Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Human-animal Relations, Culture, Health, and Ethnography.  A number of these foci intersect in his book The Global Pigeon (University of Chicago Press, 2013). He also co-edited Approaches to Ethnography (Oxford University Press, 2018). He is currently working on a book about how shale gas extraction (often called "fracking") is impacting rural communities, based on ethnographic field work in North Central Pennsylvania.

Justin F. Marceau

Professor of Law and the Brooks Institute Faculty Research Scholar of Animal Law and Policy, University of Denver

Justin F. Marceau is Professor of Law and the Brooks Institute Faculty Research Scholar of Animal Law and Policy at the University of Denver. He serves as the reporter for the pattern criminal jury instruction committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and as an inaugural member of the animal welfare committee (PAW) formed by a proclamation of the Governor of Colorado to advise on strategies for improving the protection of animals in Colorado.  He is the author of Beyond Cages (Cambridge, 2019).He serves as the reporter for the pattern criminal jury instruction committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and as an inaugural member of the animal welfare committee (PAW) formed by a proclamation of the Governor of Colorado to advise on strategies for improving the protection of animals in Colorado.  He is the author of Beyond Cages (Cambridge, 2019).He serves as the reporter for the pattern criminal jury instruction committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and as an inaugural member of the animal welfare committee (PAW) formed by a proclamation of the Governor of Colorado to advise on strategies for improving the protection of animals in Colorado.  He is the author of Beyond Cages (Cambridge, 2019).

Yamini Narayanan

Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development, Deakin University, Melbourne

Yamini Narayanan is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her work explores the ways in which (other) animals are instrumentalised in sectarian, casteist and even fascist ideologies in India.  Yamini’s research is supported by two prestigious grants from the Australian Research Council. Yamini’s work on animals, race, and nationalism has been published in major geography journals including Environment and Planning and Geoforum, as well as other leading journals such as Hypatia, South Asia, Society and Animals, and Sustainable Development. With Kathryn Gillespie, she has co-edited a special edition of the Journal of Intercultural Studies on the theme “Animal nationalisms: Multispecies cultural politics, race, and nation un/building narratives” (2020). Another co-edited special issue (with Krithika Srinivasan) is in-progress for Environment and Planning E on “The species turn in Indian identity politics”. Yamini is founding co-convenor of the Deakin Critical Animal Studies Network. In 2019, Yamini was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Mid-Career Research Excellence. In recognition of her work, she was made Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (FOCAE).

Timothy Pachirat

Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Timothy Pachirat (Ph.D. Yale, 2008) works as an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is author of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight (Yale University Press, 2011) and Among Wolves: Ethnography and the Immersive Study of Power (Routledge, 2018), both of which speak directly to the promises and perils of bringing an ethnographic sensibility to the critical study of power.  Timothy is also author of numerous ethnography-related essays and book chapters, including "The Political in Political Ethnography," "The Tyranny of Light," "Fieldwork Invisibility Potion," and "Sanctuary."  Over the past decade, Timothy has taught ethnography to over 300 Ph.D. students at The New School, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the annual Summer Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research at Syracuse University and has also delivered invited keynote talks and lectures on ethnography at Vrijie Universiteit Amsterdam, London School of Economics, Durham University (UK), University of Victoria, The University of Oslo, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Washington, the University of Florida, and the University of Utah, among others.

Juno Salazar Parreñas

Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University

Juno Salazar Parreñas is an Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation (Duke UP, 2018), winner of the 2019 Michelle Z. Rosaldo Prize (Association for Feminist Anthropology) and honorable mentions for the New Millennium Award (Society for Medical Anthropology), Harry J. Benda Prize (Association for Asian Studies), and Diana Forsythe Prize (Society for the Anthropology of Work and the Committee for the Anthropology of Computing, Science, and Technology). She is also the editor of Gender: Animals (Macmillan Reference USA, 2017).

Erin Riley

Professor, Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University

Erin P. Riley is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at San Diego State University, and is currently serving as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Primatologists. Drawing from primatology, conservation ecology, and sociocultural and environmental anthropology, her research focuses on primate behavioral and ecological flexibility in the face of anthropogenic change and the conservation implications of the ecological and cultural interconnections between human and nonhuman primates. With notable publications in American Anthropologist, Evolutionary Anthropology, American Journal of Primatology, and Oryx, her work spearheaded the field of “ethnoprimatology.” Dr. Riley is also interested in the ethics of primate fieldwork, and was a leading member of an international steering committee that produced the Code of Best Practices for Field Primatology. Her field research on the interface between humans and macaques (Macaca spp.) in Indonesia and Florida has been funded by the National Geographic Society/Waitt Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the National Science Foundation, and the American Institute for Indonesian Studies. Her most recent book, published in September 2019 by Routledge, is titled The Promise of Contemporary Primatology.

Kristen Stilt

Professor of Law, Harvard Law School 

Kristen Stilt is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.  She also serves as Faculty Director of the Animal Law & Policy Program, Director of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, and is a Deputy Dean.  Stilt was named a Carnegie Scholar for her work on Constitutional Islam, and in 2013 she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.  She has also received awards from Fulbright and Fulbright-Hays.  She received a JD from The University of Texas School of Law, where she was an associate editor of the Texas Law Review and co-editor-in-chief of the Texas Journal of Women in the Law. She also has a PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.  Her research focuses on animal law, and in particular the intersection of animal law and religious law; Islamic law and society; and comparative constitutional law.  Publications include Islamic Law in Action (Oxford University Press, 2011); “Contextualizing Constitutional Islam: The Malaysian Experience,” International Journal of Constitutional Law (2015); “Constitutional Innovation and Animal Protection in Egypt,” Law & Social Inquiry (2017); “Law,” in Critical Terms for Animal Studies, ed. Lori Gruen (University of Chicago Press, 2018); “The Ambitions of Muslim Family Law Reform,” Harvard Journal of Law & Gender (2018), with Salma Waheedi and Swathi Ghandhavadi Griffin; “Animals,” in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2017), with Jessica Eisen; and “Animals,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law, eds. Anver Emon and Rumee Ahmed (Oxford University Press, 2017).  She is currently working on a new book project entitled Halal Animals: Food, Faith, and the Future of Planetary Health to be published by Oxford University Press.

Rebecca Winkler

PhD student, Anthropology Department, University of Pennsylvania

Rebecca Winkler is a PhD student in the Anthropology department at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work examines more than human communities and their relations with wildlife conservation policies and environmental movements in Southeast Asia. She is currently working on research focusing on S’gaw Karen communities relations with elephants in the Western Thailand-Myanmar border region.  Before starting her PhD Rebecca studied Biology and Feminist Gender Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan University. She was awarded the Davenport Research Grant and the Ecofeminism Research grant for her thesis “Walking with Giants: Ecofeminist Insights on the Tourism Industry in Thailand”. She was then awarded a Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship seed grant to begin collaborating with Mahouts Elephant Foundation, a nonprofit organization working with S’gaw Karen mahouts (elephant keepers) to rehabilitate elephants previously used in intensive tourism and protect free roaming elephant populations in Thailand where she remained for 3 years prior to undertaking her PhD.