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Article
Publication date: 12 October 2015

Harry Wels

Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction

Abstract

Purpose

Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction completely, the purpose of this paper is to argue that organizational ethnography should start to explore in more detail what this means for organizational ethnographic research, theory and analysis to include non-human animals in it.

Design/methodology/approach

Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in Zimbabwe on a private wildlife conservancy, an organization that was specifically set up for and around wildlife. At the same time these non-human animals were not taken into account methodologically nor featured at all in the empirical material or in the analysis. What could it mean for the analysis and conclusions if non-human animals would have been part of the equation?

Findings

Since we live in a world shared between human and non-human animals, this also is true for the organizational lives. As scientific research increasingly shows that the distinction between human and non-human animals is more in degree than in kind it is interesting to note that nevertheless non-human animals usually produce deafening “silences” in organizational ethnographic work. Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in this context the author shows how taking non-human animals on board of the analysis radically alters the outcomes of the research.

Research limitations/implications

This paper reports on revisiting the author’s earlier ethnographic research, without actually doing the research itself again. In that sense it is a hypothetical study.

Practical implications

Organizational ethnography might have to rethink what it would mean in terms of fieldwork methodologies if it would allow non-human animals as actual agentic stakeholders in the research and analysis. It would at least need to also think in terms of “research methodologies without words” as non-human animals cannot be interviewed.

Social implications

The paper is based on a social justice perspective on human-animal relations. It tries to contribute to an intellectual argument to take non-human animals more seriously as “co-citizens” in the (organizational) life world. This may have wide ranging implications for the life styles, ranging from the types of food we eat, to liquids we drink, to the ways we think about the human superiority in this world.

Originality/value

A highly self-reflexive account of the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work, showing what it means theoretically if we take non-human animals seriously in organizational ethnographic research and analysis. At the same time it shows quite painfully organizational ethnography’s speciecist approach to research methodologies and processes of organizing.

Details

Journal of Organizational Ethnography, vol. 4 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-6749

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 April 2019

Henna Syrjälä and Anu Norrgrann

Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears

Abstract

Purpose: This chapter examines two rather extreme examples of non-human entities in home assemblage, interior objects, and companion animals, and how their agency appears distributed with human consumers in assembling home. The authors aim at drawing conceptual contrasts and overlappings in how agency expresses itself in these categories of living and non-living entities, highlighting the multifaceted manifestations of object agency.

Methodology/Approach: This chapter employs multiple sets of ethnographically inspired data, ranging from ethnographic interviews and an autoethnographic diary to three types of (auto-)netnographic data.

Findings: The findings showcase oscillation of agency between these three analytic categories (human, non-human living, and non-human non-living), focusing on how it is distributed between two of the entities at a time, within the heterogeneous assemblage of home. Furthermore, the findings show instances in which agency emerges as shared between all three entities.

Originality/Value: The contribution of this chapter comes from advancing existing discussion on object agency toward the focus on distributed and shared agency. The research adds to the prevailing discussion by exhibiting how agency oscillates between different types of interacting entities in the assemblage, and in particular, how the two types of non-human entities are agentic. The research demonstrates the variability and interwovenness of non-human and human, living and non-living agency as they appear intertwined in home assemblage.

Details

Consumer Culture Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-285-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 January 2022

Lisa Powell and Nicholas McGuigan

Responding to COVID-19, this conceptual paper uses rewilding to interrupt anthropocentric and human/nature dualist properties of accounting education. Through rewilding accounting…

Abstract

Purpose

Responding to COVID-19, this conceptual paper uses rewilding to interrupt anthropocentric and human/nature dualist properties of accounting education. Through rewilding accounting education, informed by posthumanist and ecofeminist thought, this paper aims to develop an accounting pedagogy that shapes greater ecocentric narratives. Accounting educators can contribute to addressing crises by evolving new pedagogies that radically transform the education of future accounting professionals.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors take a critical stance in analysing the human-centred accounting education model. They explore how this model can be reimagined through rewilding accounting education, resulting in learning interventions that foster an understanding of intrinsic value, complexity of systems and collective disposition with all species and the natural world.

Findings

Rewilding learning interventions embed an ecocentric approach in accounting curricula design to extend beyond a human focus. Rewilding learning interventions practically explored with application to accounting include learning with and from nature, Indigenous knowledge perspectives, play as a common language and empathy as a dialogical bridge.

Social implications

The authors present an accounting pedagogy that fosters among accounting students and educators a relational orientation and ecological consciousness that encompasses compassion and openness to others, including non-human species and nature. This will ensure that accounting graduates are better prepared for addressing future crises that stem from our disconnect with nature.

Originality/value

This paper adds to limited research investigating accounting and the Anthropocene. Investigations into the Anthropocene’s human-centred discourse in accounting education are vital to respond adequately to crises. This paper extends social and environmental accounting education literature to encompass less anthropocentric discourse and greater relational learning.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Malleable, Digital, and Posthuman
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-621-7

Article
Publication date: 16 December 2019

Erika Cudworth

Focusing on everyday lives and relationships within the household, the purpose of this paper is to suggest that the quality of “home” is altered by the presence of animal

Abstract

Purpose

Focusing on everyday lives and relationships within the household, the purpose of this paper is to suggest that the quality of “home” is altered by the presence of animal companions. Conceptions of home as a haven have been critiqued on grounds of the elision of power relations, yet home has also been understood as a place of resistance to, and refuge from, an exploitative and exclusionary public world. Acknowledging differentiated relations of power and understanding homemaking as a process, this paper investigates the playing out of species relations within home space.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on empirical material from a study of companion species in households and public spaces, deploying ethnographic material gained through extended observation and semi-structured and often mobile interviews with dog “owners” in urban and rural contexts in the UK.

Findings

Dogs transform domestic space through muddying human lives. This process is twofold. First, life in posthumanist households problematizes boundaries between humans and other creatures in terms of relationships, behaviour and use of space. Second, muddied living involves breaching and maintaining domestic order. Muddied living is characterised by tension, power and compromise. Homes are posthuman not just by including non-human animals, but through elements of dog agency in how home is made.

Originality/value

Little has been written of “home” within sociology, despite “home” capturing a range of social practice. Sociologists examining human–animal companion relations have not considered how relations play out in home space. This paper investigates home as a shared space of multispecies interaction, making the case for a posthuman sociology of home.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 January 2024

Lisa Powell and Nicholas McGuigan

This paper aims to explore the role of individual inner dimensions in fostering sustainable mindsets in accounting students and graduates. Individual inner dimensions such as…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the role of individual inner dimensions in fostering sustainable mindsets in accounting students and graduates. Individual inner dimensions such as compassion shape our behaviour and responses to sustainability challenges. Consideration of inner dimensions, in conjunction with sustainability knowledge and skill development, is needed for reshaping the accounting profession towards achieving sustainable futures.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors explore the role of individual inner dimensions in accounting and how approaches to cultivating compassion in other disciplinary educational settings could be applied to cultivate and facilitate compassion within accounting education. Approaches to cultivating compassion for human and non-human species within accounting education are presented, highlighting their relevance to accounting decisions and organisational accountability.

Findings

Cultivating compassion for human and non-human species within accounting education aligns with the broader role of accounting in social and environmental issues. Embedding compassionate approaches with a problem-solving focus within accounting pedagogies and curricula design could contribute to shaping behaviour and reorienting the mindsets of future accounting professionals.

Social implications

Cultivating compassion within accounting students enhances connections across species, encourages students to recognise the role of compassion in sustainable decision-making and promotes a sustainable mindset. Enhanced compassion in accounting graduates could provide the motivational force for action-oriented responses from the accounting profession to the unprecedented ecological crisis.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper presents a first step in exploring potential approaches to cultivating and facilitating compassion within accounting pedagogies and curricula design. This paper extends sustainability accounting education literature by considering individual inner dimensions in shifting mindsets of accounting students, graduates and educators towards sustainability.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 31 July 2012

Cynthia Townley

There is much discussion about the moral standing of animals and the scope of human responsibilities to the more-than-human world. As yet, there has been little discussion about…

Abstract

There is much discussion about the moral standing of animals and the scope of human responsibilities to the more-than-human world. As yet, there has been little discussion about whether cross-species collectives (such as a human and a dog) can constitute composite or plural agents analogous to those proposed in epistemic and moral cases. If so, fruitful new ways of understanding how we live and work with animal companions will likely emerge. This chapter takes a first step towards those new understandings by arguing that cross-species collectives are possible.

Details

Applied Ethics: Remembering Patrick Primeaux
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-989-9

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 19 May 2021

Erika Cudworth, Will Boisseau and Richard J. White

Abstract

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 2 July 2020

Nick Pendergrast

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…

1194

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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.

Findings

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.

Social implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 April 2020

Alexander Thomas

While transhumanists and posthumanists understand the human condition as mutable, for transhumanists, this represents the possibility for enhancement, opening up a teleological…

Abstract

Purpose

While transhumanists and posthumanists understand the human condition as mutable, for transhumanists, this represents the possibility for enhancement, opening up a teleological narrative of evolution toward. For posthumanists, it represents a fracturing of the liberal human subject, undermining its hegemonic principles. The former advocates the potentiality of instrumental rationality, the latter engages with values, demanding ethical consideration of the implications of the unmooring. This paper aims to conceive of a way to underpin posthumanist thought to enable to serve a more effective critique of transhumanist aims.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a theoretical paper that outlines a history of transhumanist thought and the roots of posthumanism. It provides a partially reconstructed enlightenment humanist framework to bolster the effectiveness of posthumanism as a critique of transhumanist thought.

Findings

The paper recognizes Theodor Adorno's conception that the central contradiction inherent to enlightenment thinking is the entanglement of knowledge and power. Hence, the metanarrative of progress as historical fact is fundamentally imbued with an imperial, colonizing force. For reason to achieve its promise as the organ of progress, it must become self-aware of its own limitations and its own potential destructiveness. Humility is, thus, vital in the task of preventing instrumental reason leading to inhuman ends.

Originality/value

Whilst developments such as “metahumanism” attempt to bring “posthumanism” and “transhumanism” into direct conversation, it is done from the perspective of uniting their positions. Here, the author endeavors instead to consider their antithetical nature and in particular whether posthumanism can provide an effective critique of transhumanism. Drawing on Adorno and Feenberg in particular, the author attempts to justify the posthuamanist theory but also to employ a partially reconstructed enlightenment humanism to bolster its fruitfulness as a critique of transhumanism.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

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