Animal history

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Animal history is a research area of historical science that deals with human-animal relationships in history and with the historicity of animals. Based on Human-Animal Studies , he also deals with the historical power of animals.

History of the research field

Research into human-animal relationships is neither a new area of ​​research, nor is it reduced to the historical sciences. Agricultural , natural and symbolic history have been concerned with animals since they were founded, but from a perspective that examined either the use of animals or their symbolic character in its function for humans, but did not make the animal the focus of the studies. The centrality of the animal for the negotiation of human history has been strengthened since the 1990s and also taken up again from a different perspective in the Anglo-American area. Man should no longer be placed at the center of such negotiations; the historical animal itself was to be devoted to. This change of perspective was not only carried out in historical studies , but also in social , human and cultural studies . This interdisciplinary view also dominated the further development of animal history. With the proclamation of the “Animal turn” by the American environmental historian Harriet Ritvo, animal history began to establish itself as a sub-discipline. This terminology ties in with other "turns" or cultural studies. This should underline the connectivity and relevance for historical research. At first there was skepticism, in particular because of the usable sources, in which the perspective of the animals can only be understood indirectly. The interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical approach chosen by animal history should therefore help in particular when rereading the sources. The turning point, which the "Animal turn" means, also reflected new concepts of the animal-human relationship in society as a whole. With the new access to the animal, the established sub-disciplines of historical studies (history of science , transfer history, colonial history ) have been able to find new inspiration and develop new approaches. Above all, the history of space, the history of the city and the history of the body are of particular importance within animal history.

subjects

Animal history deals with animals in the course of historical processes, the historical negotiation of human-animal relationships and the concrete actions of animals in these processes. The research focuses on historical meta-events such as domestication , urbanization , industrialization and colonization . During all historical epochs and especially during the processes mentioned - animal history assumes this - animals were in different and changing relationships with humans, be it as farm animals, pets or status symbols, as companions or competitors. Animal history is interested in the shifts in terms of the similarities and differences that have been attached to animals. Their images and visibility enable conclusions to be drawn about these changes. Space is used as an analysis framework for these visibilities, in particular the relocation of the animal from public to private space as well as the amalgamation of statehood and private space, for example in legislation ( animal welfare legislation , tax laws ). Specific fields of investigation are livestock husbandry, domestic animals, zoological gardens, hunting, animal breeding, animals in sport and in the military context, with the latter aspect only playing a subordinate role in the context of animal history. The genre of biography, in which the history of individual animals is reconstructed, represents a special approach.

swell

The basic problem in animal history is the non-existence of animal testimonies. To make up for this, animal history draws on other types of sources. These include, for example, normative sources (laws, city regulations, tax regulations), documentary sources (administrative files, diaries, letters), and archaeological sources (vedute, portraits). Furthermore, ethological observations are used. Sources that are already known and interpreted are also examined through targeted re-reading for aspects and information relevant to animal history. Overall, animal history assumes that it is necessary to reread historical sources and fill gaps.

theory

The interpretation of the sources is based on different theoretical models. At the same time, these theoretical models address central issues relating to the individualization and collectivization of animals. A prominent approach is to assign animals agency (i.e. the power to act or have an effect) and here the actor-network theory is used to a large extent . This theory assigns the status of an actor to animals as "non-human beings" and - with references to one of its main representatives, Bruno Latour - it assumes that the culture-nature dualism must be abolished in the sense of a symmetrical anthropology, so that animals are visible as historical agents close. With Latour, the social level between humans and animals is made fertile, from which a relational existence of humans and animals is made visible. It is also emphasized that both humans and other animals have to be “produced” again and again as actors. Reference is also made to the model of a “co-constitutive relationship” which was developed by the American science historian and biologist Donna Haraway and in which she particularly reflects the close relationship between “companion species”. The divided lifeworlds of humans and animals that appear in social action are a primary starting point for research in animal history. Another theoretical field that animal history treads is that of praxeology . This originally sociological theory is made usable for animal history, with the interaction of social actors again being the focus. Animal history therefore assumes that not only the discursive but also the non-discursive practices of the animal-human relationship must be observed and that the material and the semiotic must be brought together. For animal history, contextualization and exploration of the entanglement of place and time are ideal. However, this is only the beginning of her investigation.

method

Animal history draws on the methodological fund of the entire historical sciences. Approaches, for example the history of nature , civilization and mentality as well as the new social and cultural history are used and reinterpreted. Probably the most frequently used methodological approach focuses on the investigation of the animal-human relationship. These relationship constellations are understood, for example, as “ entangled history ”, in which it is important to relate the actors of a network and understand them as interconnected. Further approaches are the biographical-subjectivistic, the action-oriented, in which the focus is on the actors, and the praxeological-performative. The investigation of animal symbolism, which is methodically subject to the representational approach, is also part of animal history, even if it is primarily about negotiating human history. Animal history as spatial history examines the space shared by humans and animals. Methods of discourse history are used by animal history to sound out animal attributions to humans and, conversely, human attributions to animals. The disparate source situation is partially compensated by the ethological approach. The different methodological access options have in common that the existing source material is “brushed against the grain” and is read anew in the sense of symmetrical anthropology.

Representative of the research field

Prominent representatives in the Anglo-American area are u. a. Harriet Ritvo, Hilda Kean, Erica Fudge, Susan McHugh, Susan Pearson, Nigel Rothfels, Brett Walker, Brett Mizelle and Kathleen Kete, during the German research by Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann , Mitchell Ash , Maren Möhring , Rainer Pöppinghege, Pascal Eitler, Anna-Katharina Wöbse, Mieke Roscher and Dorothee Brantz will be represented.

theorist

Reference is made in the theory to: Giorgio Agamben , Donna Haraway , Bruno Latour , Jacques Derrida , Gilles Deleuze / Félix Guattari , Elias Canetti , Walter Benjamin , Michel Foucault and Claude Lévi-Strauss .

Institutionalization

Since 2011, animal history in Germany has been grouped around the research network "Animals and History - Animals and History", which meets once a year for a conference. There is also a professorship for human-animal history at the University of Kassel . The interdisciplinary, highly historically interested specialist journal "Tierstudien" has been published since 2012

literature

English

  • Pascal Eitler, Animal History as Body History: Four Suggestions from a Genealogical Perspective , in: Body Politics 2 (2012), Heft 4, pp. 259-274.
  • Erica Fudge, What was it like to be a Cow? History and Animal Studies, in: Linda Kalof (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, doi: 10.1093 / oxfordhb / 9780199927142.013.28
  • Linda Kalof, Brigitte Resl (eds.), A Cultural History of Animals, Volumes 1-6, London.
  • Linda Kalof, Looking at Animals, London 2007.
  • Hilda Kean, Challenges for Historians writing Animal-Human History: What is really enough ?, in: Anthrozoös 25 (2012), pp. 57-72.
  • Kathleen Kete, The Beast in the Boudoir. Petkeeping in nineteenth-Century Paris, Berkeley 1994.
  • Clay McShane, Joel A. Tarr, The Horse in the City. Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century, Baltimore 2009.
  • Harriet Ritvo, The Animal Estate. The English and other Creatures in The Victorian Age, Harvard 1987.
  • Nigel Rothfels (ed.), Representing Animals, Bloomington 2002.

German

  • Mitchell Ash (ed.), Humans, Animals, and the Zoo. The Schönbrunn Zoo in an international comparison from the 18th century to today, Vienna 2008.
  • Dorothee Brantz, Christof Mauch (eds.), Animal history. The relationship between humans and animals in modern culture, Paderborn 2010.
  • Pascal Eitler, Maren Möhring, A Modern Animal Story. Theoretical Perspectives, in: Traverse 15 (2008), pp. 91–106.
  • Pascal Eitler, In animal company. A literature report on the human-animal relationship in the 19th and 20th centuries, in: Neue Politische Literatur 54 (2009), pp. 207–224.
  • Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann (eds.), Animals and History. Contours of an Animate History, Stuttgart 2014.
  • Anett Laue: The socialist animal. Effects of the SED policy on social human-animal relationships in the GDR (1949–1989), Cologne 2017.
  • Maren Möhring: Other animals - On the historicity of non / human body , in: Body Politics 2 (2015), Heft 4, pp. 249-257.
  • Paul Münch, animals and people. A topic of historical basic research, in: Paul Münch, Rainer Walz (eds.), Animals and People: History and Actuality of a Precarious Relationship, Paderborn 21998, pp. 9–34.
  • Mieke Roscher, Where is the animal in this text? Chances and limits of an animal historiography, in: Chimaira –Ararbeitskreis für Human-Animal-Studies (ed.), Human-Animal-Studies. On the social nature of human-animal relationships, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 121–151.
  • Mieke Roscher, Human-Animal Studies, Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte (2012),
  • Mieke Roscher, History: From a story with animals to an animal story, in: R. Spannring et al. (Ed.), Disciplined Animals? Perspectives of Human-Animal Studies for the Scientific Disciplines, Bielefeld 2015, pp. 75–100.
  • Aline Steinbrecher, On the Search for Traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29.
  • Clemens Wischermann (ed.), About cats and people. Social history on quiet feet, Konstanz 2007.

Magazines

  • Animal studies
  • Society & Animals
  • Anthropoid

The following magazines have a themed issue on animal history:

  • Traverse - magazine for history: Silke Bellanger, Katja Hürlimann, Aline Steinbrecher (eds.), Special issue »Animals - Another Story«, issue 3 2008.
  • Information on modern city history: Clemens Wischermann (ed.), Special issue: "Animals in the City", issue 2 2009.
  • Workshop history: André Krebber, Mieke Roscher (eds.), Special issue "animals" H. 56 2011.
  • Historical anthropology: Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher (eds.) H. 18.2, 2011
  • Westphalian research: Rainer Pöppinghege (ed.), Special issue: "Humans and animals in the region", H. 62 2012.
  • History and Theory: David Gary Shaw (ed.), Special issue "Does history need animals?", H. 52 2013.
  • Body Politics - Journal of Body History: Maren Möhring (ed.), Special issue »Animal Body«, issue 4 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aline Steinbrecher, In Search of Traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29, here pp. 22–24.
  2. ↑ Aline Steinbrecher: Animals and Space . In: Aline Steinbrecher u. a. (Ed.): Animals and History . Stuttgart 2014, p. 219-240 .
  3. ^ Pascal Eitler: Animal History as Body History . In: Body Politics . tape 2 , no. 4 , 2014, p. 259-274 .
  4. ↑ The term was first developed in the German-speaking world in: Pascal Eitler, Maren Möhring, Eine Tiergeschichte der Moderne. Theoretical Perspectives, in: Traverse 15 (2008), pp. 91–106.
  5. ↑ Aline Steinbrecher, In Search of Traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29, here pp. 22–29 and Mieke Roscher, Where is the animal in this text? Chances and limits of an animal historiography, in: Chimaira –Ararbeitskreis für Human-Animal-Studies (ed.), Human-Animal-Studies. On the social nature of human-animal relationships, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 121–151, here pp. 128–130.
  6. ^ Gesine Krüger , Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann, Animate History. Approaches and concepts of a story between humans and animals, in: Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann (eds.), Animals and History. Contours of an Animate History, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 9–33, here pp. 30–31.
  7. ↑ Aline Steinbrecher, In Search of Traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29, here p. 2 and Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann, Animate History. Approaches and concepts of a story between humans and animals, in: Gesine Krüger, Aline Steinbrecher, Clemens Wischermann (eds.), Animals and History. Contours of an Animate History, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 9–33, here p. 10.
  8. ↑ Bruno Latour, We have never been modern. Attempt at a symmetrical anthropology. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, p. 122.
  9. ↑ Mieke Roscher, Where is the animal in this text? Chances and limits of an animal historiography, in: Chimaira –Ararbeitskreis für Human-Animal-Studies (ed.), Human-Animal-Studies. On the social nature of human-animal relationships, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 121–151, here pp. 139–140 and Aline Steinbrecher, Looking for traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29, here p. 17.
  10. ^ Eitler: Animal History . 2012.
  11. ↑ Donna Haraway: The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Chicago: 2003.
  12. ↑ Susan Pearson, Mary Weismantel, Does the Beast Exist? Social theoretical reflections, in: Dorothee Brantz, Christof Mauch (eds.), Animal History. The relationship between humans and animals in the culture of modernity, Paderborn 2010, pp. 379–400, here pp. 386–388.
  13. ↑ Pascal Eitler, Maren Möhring, An Animal History of Modernity. Theoretical Perspectives, in: Traverse 15 (2008), pp. 91–106, here pp. 100–102.
  14. ↑ Donna Haraway, When Species Meet. Minneapolis 2008, p. 4.
  15. ↑ Mieke Roscher, Where is the animal in this text? Chances and limits of an animal historiography, in: Chimaira –Ararbeitskreis für Human-Animal-Studies (ed.), Human-Animal-Studies. On the social nature of human-animal relationships, Bielefeld 2011, pp. 121–151, here pp. 139–140 and Aline Steinbrecher, Looking for traces. History and its examination of animals, in: Westfälische Forschungen 62 (2012), pp. 9–29, here pp. 135–138 and pp. 141–143.
  16. ^ Walter Benjamin, About the Concept of History, in: Walter Benjamin: Illuminations. Selected writings, vol. 1, Frankfurt a. M. 1974, pp. 253f.
  17. ^ Four Suggestions from a Genealogical Perspective
  18. ↑ Other animals - On the historicity of non / human bodies
  19. ↑ Human Animal Studies at docupedia.de
  20. ↑ Animal studies ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.neofelis-verlag.de
  21. ^ Society & Animals ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.brill.com
  22. ^ Traverse - magazine for history
  23. ↑ Information on modern city history
  24. ↑ Special issue "animals" H. 56 2011 .
  25. ↑ Historical Anthropology ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dg.philhist.unibas.ch
  26. ^ Westphalian research
  27. ^ History and Theory
  28. ^ Body Politics - Journal of Body History