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Animal rights is a growing social justice movement opposed to all forms of animal exploitation and abuse. Animal rights is not animal welfare. It is not pet therapy, wildlife conservation, or the services of the local humane society. Although it shares concerns with other organizations interested in the welfare of animals, the animal rights movement is activist and progressive, rejecting the view that animals are resources to be used for human purposes.

This paper addresses the social forces, such as cultural traditions, economic structures, and legal systems, affecting animal (human and nonhuman) rights. Also considered are the cross‐cultural degrees of societal advancement on rights, as illustrated by cultures that are stagnant on rights, progressive on rights, and regressive on rights. The definition of “advanced” versus “primitive” cultures is somewhat complicated with the argument being that technologically and materially advanced cultures can be primitive on rights issues, as found in the present‐day US. The right‐wing Bush administration, greatly aided by the “war on terrorism”, has devolved human rights by reducing civil liberties, freedom of assembly, educational opportunities, and economic equality. This repression of human rights has repercussions for environmental protection and nonhuman rights, as demonstrated herein.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the issues of animal rights in the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industry, and to suggest ethical guidelines for the operation of animal‐based attractions.

The issue is presented through an extensive literature review, in addition to current examples and demonstrations from the industry.

For years, the H&T industry has been heavily criticized for its inconsiderate and even cruel use of animals for entertainment purposes. However, there are clear indications, presented in this paper, of a growing tendency to adopt approaches that emphasize animal welfare and even animal rights.

The growing awareness of animal rights, the changing public opinion and the influence of animal rights' movements is forcing animal attractions to re‐evaluate their attitudes toward the use of animals. Generally, animal attractions should adopt an approach that combines entertainment, education and welfare concerns. Specific guidelines for each component and recommendations are provided. However, this issue requires further discussion and research to clarify key problems.

The paper is of value to researchers and practitioners who are interested in the development of H&T ethics regarding the use of animals.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics and transformative potential associated with counter accounts. It explores how counter-accountants’ attempts to rearticulate animal production result in their own identity becoming constructed during the conflict setting and how this identity subsequently relates to the transformative potential of the counter accounts.

The paper investigates counter accounts released during an animal rights activists’ campaign against industrial meat and dairy production in Finland. The counter accounts, consisting of secretly filmed videos from pig farms, contrasted the official depiction of animal farming and received wide publicity over several years. The main empirical data set consists of 21 interviews with a variety of parties that have a stake in the conflict. This data set is supplemented with a broad set of published documentary material.

The authors find that the counter accounts managed, to some extent, to rearticulate the meaning of animal production, potentially resulting in the emergence of small-scale societal effects. When trying to undermine the counter-accountants’ radical political demand, the dominant social groups not only dismissed the counter accounts but also attempted to constitute the counter-accountants’ identity as irresponsible, militant and negligent, drawing a firm political boundary between “them” and “us.” Likewise, the counter-accountants seemed reluctant to communicate with representatives of the dominant regime, resulting in an antagonistic as opposed to an agonistic relationship between the two political groups. The paper also discusses ethical questions concerning the production of counter accounts, the importance of having a clearly articulated political vision, and the challenges related to evaluating whether the counter accounts have been successful.

The paper provides insights into the design, use and reception of counter accounts in a real-life social setting, thus providing a direct response to a recent call by Thomson et al. (2015). The paper illustrates the usefulness of the conceptual dynamic conflict arena framework presented by Thomson et al. (2015), and makes use of discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Laclau, 2005, 2001, 1996) to highlight how in exploring the transformative potential of counter accounts it is necessary to also consider how the identity of the counter-accountants becomes constructed and understood. Furthermore, the paper also seeks to advance the connections between accounting research and significant global problems by investigating an ethically and environmentally disputed industry, and by engaging with the interrelationships between accounts and accountability in the context of socio-ecological change.

This article explores the different ways in which the vegan turn within the animal advocacy movement in Australia has played out for two organisations, Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV) and Animals Australia. Previous research has found that this promotion of veganism has occurred to varying degrees for different organisations and this article will analyse some of these variations in greater depth, drawing on the sociological theory of resource mobilisation.

This article provides a case study on the campaigning of ALV and Animals Australia on the issue of the dairy industry, as well as an overview of their histories, with a focus on the changing level of vegan campaigning over time. In order to explore this issue, this article will draw on the campaigning materials of the organisations studied, a wide range of academic literature and interviews with key figures from both of these organisations.

Larger organisations have a limited ability to regularly promote a vegan message due to their need to bring in a large amount of resources to sustain costs such as their office costs and paid staff. It is more grassroots organisations that have far greater scope to consistently and strongly promote a vegan message, although they reach fewer people.

The increasing uptake of veganism will have important implications for animals as well as for human health and the environment. The environmental benefits of veganism become even more significant in light of the urgent need to tackle the substantial threat of climate change.

This article is a contribution to the expanding field of critical animal studies as well as to the literature on sociology and animals. It builds on the limited amount of existing sociological literature on vegan activism and contributes an analysis in Australian context.

This paper aims to discuss the questioning around the current suitability of ownership both for accessing to certain property (housing, to be more specific) and chattels (digital contents, animals and autonomous robots) that have recently flourished, favored by technological advances and the change in the values of the millennials’ in a context of crisis.

The process of substitution (e.g. through alternative housing tenures, such as intermediate tenures and collaborative housing, licensing digital contents) or erosion/elimination (e.g. owning animals and robots, tokenization through blockchain) of ownership through key types of property and chattels.

Ownership, both of land and goods, is again at the stake. Technological advances and/or new values of millennials in a context of crisis have led to questioning the suitability of ownership to favor universal access to housing, of holding music and other digital contents, have limited the faculties of animals’ and pets’ owners and are favoring the evolution of autonomous robots into subjects of law rather than mere objects.

Only key property (housing) and chattels are studied (digital contents, animals, robots). There is no broad study of the global current situation of ownership.

It is discussed how the changes of values and technological advances in a context of crisis have impacted in the strength and reliability of ownership to allow access to property and chattels.

These changes in ownership change how we can access to property (housing) and to chattels (digital media) and even to changes in what is considered “object” such as what is happening in Europe with animals and robots.

This is a new approach to consequences of the crisis in the field of housing (fractioning of ownership -temporal and shared ownership-, collaborative economy) and a change of values in the new millennial generation (animals) in this context and owing to the advance of the new technologies (robots). Is ownership again at the stake?

The purpose of this paper is to map the field of sociological animal studies through some examples of critical and mainstream approaches and considers their relation to advocacy. It makes the argument that while all these initiatives have made important contributions to the project of “animalising sociology” and suggest a need for change in species relations, the link between analysis and political strategy is uncertain.

The paper develops its argument by using secondary sources, reviewing sociological positions and offering illustrations of possible interventions.

Sociological interventions in the field of animal studies have been informed by critical perspectives, such as feminism and Marxism, or taken less critical routes deploying actor-network theory and symbolic interactionism. Whilst those working in critical traditions may appear to have a more certain political agenda, an analysis of “how things are” does not always lead to a clear position on “what is to be done” in terms of social movement agendas or policy intervention. In addition, concepts deployed in advocacy such as “liberation”, “quality of life” or “care” are problematic when applied beyond the human. Despite this, there are possibilities for coalition and solidarity around certain claims for change.

If the central argument of the paper were taken seriously by general sociologists, then sociology may be more open to “animal studies”. In implications for exisitng sociological animal studies scholarship is to trouble some of the certainties around advocacy.

If the central argument of the paper were taken seriously by advocacy groups, then the hiatus between “welfarism” and “liberation” might be overcome.

There have been recent attempts to map the field of scholarship in animal studies, but surprisingly little consideration of how different emergent positions inform questions of advocacy and the possibilities for political intervention.

The study aims to investigate a relevant topic, but still underestimated by sociological studies: animal advocacy, namely, the organized interest in non-human animals' life, rights and well-being. The Italian case is discussed, with a twofold objective: to highlight the evolution of some repertoires of contention and to use this study to analyze the changes of contemporary collective mobilizations and their relation with the modernization process.

The analysis is based on an online survey (704 responses nationwide), 24 semi-structured interviews with relevant members of groups and associations and a protest event analysis. Furthermore, a vast empirical archive and some academic studies concerning Italian animal advocacy in its historical dimension have been consulted.

The paper underlines the current specificities of Italian animal advocacy, compared to past decades. The great importance assumed by personal action frames and repertoires of contention emerged as characterizing elements. Activism is always more individual and less related to collective organizations: the central role of veganism and of the internet as protest tool is underlined. Both the increasing possibilities offered by better discursive opportunities structure, but also the possible incorporation of more radical frames within consumer market dynamics emerged from the interviews and the survey.

The phenomenon of animal advocacy (and, more generally, the activities of contemporary social movements) is contextualized within some typical characteristics of modernity, looking both at structural “opportunities” (e.g.: the diffusion of post-materialist values) and “constraints” (e.g.: veganwashing operations). Based on previous definitions coming from social movements studies and following a debate hosted by this journal, the role of collective organizations and especially the centrality assumed by individual activism is critically analyzed, evaluating the new possibilities, but also the possible negative sides. Not only cultural changes, but also political and legal contexts matter. In this sense, both a focus on Italy and more general reflections on western modernities are proposed, trying to go beyond animal advocacy and reflecting on social movements and collective mobilizations more widely.

This research aims to determine the relationship between the consumption of animal products and attitudes towards animals among university students in Eurasia.

A survey was conducted with collaborators in each country who supervised volunteers to personally invite 16,777 students to take part. The sample was composed of 3,433 students from 103 universities in 11 Eurasian countries. ANOVA was used to compare the responses. All analyses were conducted using the statistical packages Minitab 15 and SPSS 15.

A total of 47 per cent of university students avoided some meat products, 4 per cent were vegetarians and 0.4 per cent vegans. Students avoiding some meat did so principally for environmental and health reasons, and beef and lamb were the meats most likely to be avoided. Vegetarians avoided meat mainly for health reasons. Vegans had greater concern about humans using animals than vegetarians, who in turn had greater concerns than those avoiding some meat.

Avoidance of animal products was related to an increased level of concern for animal rights, animal experimentation and wildlife, with vegans demonstrating the greatest concern. This implied that students' attitudes to animal welfare and rights can affect animal product‐eating behaviours.

This study conflicts with previous studies by demonstrating that health rather than environment was a major reason for vegetarianism. The study highlights the importance of environmental, health and welfare concerns but not religion in avoidance of animal products.

This essay discusses whether the practice of keeping pets, defined as a class of animals existing for human purposes, is morally acceptable. Clouding the issue is the claim that humans have always had pets. Selected historical examples show that this is not the case. Instead, the doctrine of human supremacy has meant that close relationships with animals have often been ideologically impossible. Today, however, increasing knowledge about animals’ intellectual and emotional capacities blurs the once‐distinct boundary between humans and other animals. Given this knowledge, treatment of animals must also be reassessed. In particular, the essay argues that animals have the basic right not to be treated as the property of others. Although a world without pets is unpleasant to consider, the perpetuation of our pleasure is not sufficient reason to enslave other animals.