Ethnographies of animal violence and an impure ethics of care

Abstract

At the intersection of ethics of care and animal geographies scholarship are important discussions about human-animal power dynamics, violence, and what it means to understand and care for animals in ethnographic research where power and violence are prevalent. In this article, I add nuance to these debates by expanding on Shotwell’s work on impurity to consider, what I call, an impure ethics of care. This, I explain, complicates and strengthens our understanding, as scholars, of our ethically fraught relations with animals and the research contexts we enter to address and respond to animal violence. I show how an impure ethics of care highlights the challenges and complexities of power, violence, care, and relationality and, most importantly, how it contributes to efforts of building more ethical relations with animals through scholarship and research practice. I ground this discussion in a study of multispecies participant observation at live cow auctions in Ontario, Canada, unpacking the violence cows endure and respond to in sale barns to which an impure ethics of care responds.

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