Conference Presentations by Dawnja Burris
Throughout human history, representations of the non-human animal have been produced to represent... more Throughout human history, representations of the non-human animal have been produced to represent the human's notion of its own attributes and being, with portrayal found in volumes of both indexed and metaphorical example. The process and result of representing situates the human self in context with the world and others and provides ways of knowing and being. Concurrently, the desire to access and continue to relate with non-human animals results in the creation of their image and provides the means for potential embodied relationship with them. 1 Humans refer to non-human animals in multifarious ways through constructed figurations of them. This practice takes many forms and proceeds from a variety of imperatives. Recurring desires to represent them may indicate a possible impulse to accept rather than disavow animal difference and animality in the human. This position is based on an assertion that there are two motivations which are not necessarily disconnected. One being the notice, envy and desire for characteristics of the non-human animal that are qualitatively different than human's and the other being the impulse to allay the guilt- individual and collective- associated with the exploitation, co-option and annihilation of both nature and the animal other. Attribution of characteristics particular to the human, the animal or other objects, states and concepts is located readily throughout human history, perhaps in attempt to understand differences and to imagine relationship. Personification may be seen as an attempt to understand the differences of the animal, to control it and also to establish an imagined relationship with it that forgives the injustices applied by the human species to it. In this latter case, the tendency for the human to assume superiority results quickly in anthropocentrism. Contact and Consumption Consumption of the non-human animal is defined in a number of ways ranging from actual ingest of its flesh and wearing of its skin, usage in medical and cosmetic products to the mimic and embodiment of its characteristics and attributes, both physical and 1 A primary conceptual framework for this exploration is that underscored by Donna Haraway, who in most of her writing whether about biology or the metaphor of the cyborg or domestic dogs as bodies onto which the histories of bio-power are mapped, asserts for a politics that embraces hybridity and rejects essentialism. Her consistent feminist positioning informs many critiques on the entangled ways the animal is socially constructed and treated.
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Conference Presentations by Dawnja Burris