How does the dog, as a thinking, feeling, socially-complex being, interact with humans in a shared environment? Is the dog’s subjective agency recognized and allowed to flourish? Is the dog an object, symbol, clown, prisoner, slave, tool, property, friend, family member, something else?

SOCIOLOGY OF DOGS & OTHER CANIDS

In this essay, we will do as Marie Fox suggests in her article and take dogs seriously, as part of our efforts to understand social life in a more complex, less-anthropocentric way that recognizes the affective entanglements of cross-species encounters. This essay will take the form of a multispecies ethnography in which you will reflect on the world of an individual dog who you know personally and your interactions with that individual being, using the course material as well as your own experience and other additional sources that you find are useful. This assignment asks you to make an effort to gain an intimate understanding of another individual’s life, to pay attention to someone else and to try to understand how that individual participates in a multispecies community.

First, your paper should say who this dog is and give some biographical information. But your paper should go beyond description to create some serious and critically-informed reflections on how this dog maneouvres in an interspecies social world and the roles and restrictions imposed upon this particular being. Questions to consider:

How does the dog, as a thinking, feeling, socially-complex being, interact with humans in a shared environment?

Is the dog’s subjective agency recognized and allowed to flourish?

Is the dog an object, symbol, clown, prisoner, slave, tool, property, friend, family member, something else?

What is it like to be this particular dog and how might this dog’s experiences be typical or abnormal?

How is the dog’s lifeworld coproduced through interactions and relations with humans?

How is this dog’s existence and status determined by institutional conditions and cultural practices?

What can your observations tell you about nonhuman personhood?

Much of our readings and discussions will consider our ethical relations with other animals and you should address those ethical concerns in your paper.

What are our ethical obligations to companion animals and are they being met in the case you consider?

In her book, Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz suggests that by paying attention to dogs, we may gain some new sensory experiences of the world. What else might we learn from taking dogs seriously?

What does it mean to pay attention to a dog? What have you learned from this dog?

Has the course material helped you to understand dogs in a different way? How? What is significant about such an understanding? What are the broader implications?

What ethical obligations do you have toward this dog and what obligations do we have towards dogs in general?

What does it mean to care for an animal? What moral responsibilities do we have to (nonhuman) others?

What kind of moral situation do we place ourselves in when we decide to own a pet? How does this alter our own positionality?

How does attentiveness to animals allow & encourage us to rethink our own lives and what it is to be human?

How does your investigation of an individual dog’s life inform your thoughts on how animals should be treated generally?

Should we give equal moral weight to their interests? What would this entail?

Your paper should not simply be descriptive but should place your reflections on an individual dog in the context of theories about our relations with other species. As well as making sure that your paper is explicitly linked to course themes raised in lectures and course readings, refer to at least 6 additional academic sources (Will add multiple readings from class, be sure to use them) to support the points you make.