Bearing Witness: Ruth Harrison and British Farm Animal Welfare (1920-2000)

ISBN-13: 9783030627911 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 271 str.

Claas Kirchhelle

Recenzje

"Bearing Witness is a landmark work in our understanding not only of Ruth Harrison, but a century of debate about animal welfare and animal welfare science. ... the narrative is engaging and makes for a genre-wise, joyful read. I would recommend this book to all those who work on animal welfare, human-animal studies, or animal philosophy. It is a rare and comprehensive work, giving us both new and better insights into the historical, political, and conceptual background of animal welfare." (Jes Lynning Harfeld, Animal Welfare, Vol. 31 (2), May, 2022)
"This book is a must-read for any animal welfare scientist; in my opinion even more so than Animal Machines ... . Publisher Palgrave MacMillan provides the book in Open Access so that it can be read by everyone. It is thus a recommended addition to students' reading list. Bearing Witness is compelling, well-written and unbiased in its biography. ... Kirchhelle describes the person behind the facts, with her passion for justice, the mistakes that she made, and her tactics and power to persuade." (Irene Camerlink, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Vol. 250, May, 2022)

Spis treści

1. Introduction

Part One: Radical Roots (1920–1961)

2. Meet the Winstens: a 'downstart' Anglo-Jewish family

3. Becoming an Activist: Ruth Harrison's turn to animal welfare

Part Two: Synthesis - the post-war landscape of welfare science and activism (1945-1964)

4: Between Physiology and Psychology – ethology and animal feelings

5. Ideals and Intensification: welfare campaigns in a Nation of Animal Lovers

6. Staging Welfare: Writing Animal Machines

Part Three: Impact (1964-68)

7. From author to adviser - Ruth Harrison and the Animal Machines moment

Part Four: Defining Welfare (1967-1979)

8. A 'minority of one' - Harrison and the FAWAC

9. Ruth the Ruthless: activism, welfare, and generational change

10. Slippery FACTs: the rise of a "mandated" animal welfare science

Part Five: From Eclat to Consensus (1979-2000)

11. From Protest to 'Holy Writ' - the mainstreaming of welfare politics

12. Non-conform Evidence - the impasse of 1990s welfare research

13. Conclusion

O autorze

Claas Kirchhelle (DPhil, Oxon 2015) is a medical historian and Lecturer at University College Dublin, with a Wellcome Trust University Award. His award-winning research and public engagement (Back from the Dead - Demystifying Antibiotics 2016-2017; Typhoidland 2020-2022) explore the interconnected evolution of modern science, politics, and the environment. His previous publications include Pyrrhic Progress. The History of Antibiotics in Anglo-American Food Production, which won the 2020 Turriano Prize.  

Blurb

This open access book is the biography of one of Britain’s foremost animal welfare campaigners and of the world of activism, science, and politics she inhabited. In 1964, Ruth Harrison’s bestseller Animal Machines triggered a gear change in modern animal protection by popularising the term ‘factory farming’ alongside a new way of thinking about animal welfare. Here, historian Claas Kirchhelle explores Harrison’s avant-garde upbringing, Quakerism, and how animal welfare debates were linked to concerns about the wider ethical and environmental trajectories of post-war Britain. Breaking the myth of Harrison as a one-hit wonder, Kirchhelle reconstructs Harrison’s 46 years of campaigning and the rapid transformation of welfare politics and science during this time. Exacerbated by Harrison’s own actions, the decades after 1964 saw a polarisation of animal politics, a professionalisation of British activism, and the rise of a new animal welfare science. Harrison’s belief in incremental reform allowed her to form ties to leading scientists but alienated her from more radical campaigners. Many of her 1964 demands gradually became part of mainstream politics. However, farm animal welfare’s increasing marketisation has also led to a relative divorce from the wider agenda of social improvement that Harrison once bore witness to. this is the first book to cast light on the interlinked and frequently uneasy histories of post-war British animal welfare activism, science, and legislation. Its unique scope allows it to go beyond limited existing accounts of modern British animal welfare and will be of interest to those interested in animal welfare, environmentalism, and the behavioural sciences.