[Reader-list] Rethinking animal activism - Sarai Fellowhip Post 2

[Santana Issar]

Due apologies for the much delayed posting, but Santana Issar has been out
of the country the last month attending a couple of film festivals. All work
was on hold while she was away (fieldwork was stalled thanks to the heat)
but we have resumed our research by attempting to gain some sort of foothold
into the dominant theories surrounding animal welfare.

Very briefly, Western theory on human-animal relationships revolves around
two strains of thought – animal welfare and animal rights.

Animal welfarism accepts the instrumental use of animals by humans so long
as the former are not subjected to "unnecessary" suffering and cruelty i.e.
so long as certain community-derived ethical standards for their treatment
are in place. Animal welfarist action, thus, has focused on the regulation
of animal exploitation rather than its abolition.

The more utopian animal 'rights' activism, born in the late 1970s, rejects
outright the use of animals by humans in any form – consumption,
experimentation, entertainment – on the premise that it violates basic
principles of justice. Rights activists contend that animals have
inalienable rights (whether equivalent to human rights or not) that must be
protected legally, and they often adopt the arguments and strategies
employed for feminism and anti-racism – predicated on the rejection of
discrimination based on perceived differences. Discrimination against
animals based on their perceived 'inferiority' and 'irrationality' is seen
as negated in view of modern notions of justice which extend the principle
to infants, the elderly and the mentally handicapped.

Despite conceptual differences, rights and welfare activists frequently
overlap strategies – the cessation of cruelty aimed at the gradual abolition
of institutionalized exploitation of animals.

While animal activism in the West revolves around these ideas, human-animal
interaction transcends the rights/welfare worldview. Heated debate rages
around animal experiments, demand for meat continues to rise, and the urban
environment produces interesting disciplines like 'Urban Animal Management'
(http://www.iimage.com.au/ava.com.au/UAM/uamhome.htm) which quite literally
applies management strategies and uses management jargon ( like "risk
management") to 'streamline' and 'organise' human-animal relationships –
largely urban pet-owners and their cats and dogs. A UAM institution based in
Australia covers aspects as diverse as microchipping of dogs, control of
stray animal population and innovative feeding mechanisms for housebound
pets (here's a good one – "freeze bits of meat on a string in ice and hang
from the washing line. When the ice melts, the meat will drop to the
ground.")

We are in the process of creating a blog which will contain further details
on theory as well as be regularly updated with our work. The link will be
posted up shortly.
Aditi Saraf
Santana Issar

On 24/06/07, reader-list-request at sarai.net <reader-list-request at sarai.net>
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State- 3rd       Sarai
>       I-Fellowship Post (Raman Chima)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 20:46:57 +0530
> From: "Raman Chima" <ramanchima at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Reader-list] Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State-
>         3rd     Sarai I-Fellowship Post
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Message-ID:
>         <2fbb8fe0706230816t34a46d56x1c2821f911e9eb37 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm extremely sorry for the considerable delay on my part in putting
> up this third post of mine. I've set up a blog at
> http://stateoftheweb.blogspot.com where I've put up an expanded
> write-up on this post. I've decided to only post summaries here on the
> Readers-List in order to cut down on the amount of material you all
> have to read at one go here. I'll post a summary of each entry here on
> the list so you all know when I make a new post there along with an
> idea of what the expansive post is about. The expansive notes for this
> post will be up on my blog in a day or so. But without further adieu,
> let me give you a summarized update on what I've been doing. I've got
> several books examining the subject of how the Internet is regulated,
> and specifically how the nation state relates to this.
>
> I've currently read "Who Controls the Internet" by Goldsmith and Wu,
> whose essential argument supported by their research is that the
> Internet is well within the ambit of regulation by national
> governments. This is a counter to a very widespread view among the
> initial users, developers, and entrepreneurs of the Internet that it
> was an essentially libertarian space which couldn't be subject to
> regulation, especially that of traditional nation states. There are
> other writers dealing with this subject that I'm currently reading,
> these being Lessig in "Code 2.0", and Giacomello in "National
> Governments and Control of the Internet". You'll find a detailed look
> at all of this in my blog. I've also put up a rough chronology of the
> known "active" attempts by the Indian State to regulate speech and
> expression on the Internet across the years till now on my blog as well.
>
> An interesting glance into the Indian psyche concerning speech and the
> Internet was presented by a recent episode of "We the People" on NDTV.
> The striking feature about all of that was the absolute lack of any
> clear mention of the fundamental right to freedom of speech and
> expression with relation to Internet activity. I've posted a detailed
> look on it on my blog, and I'm trying to obtain a copy of the
> programme along with any research and production note to add to the
> archival material that I'll submit. I'd appreciate any help on how to
> go about to obtain this from NDTV if anyone has experience on how such
> things work.
>
> I'm currently planning on interviewing people next week in Delhi. The
> person that I'm meeting first is Dr Gulshan Rai, who's with the
> Department of IT and a name most people know in relation to the
> blocking of certain blogs last year by the Government of India. I'm
> also going to try meeting heads of Internet Service Providers in
> Delhi. What I want to do though is survey these providers along with
> local establishments such as Internet cafes in order to see how they
> are subject to regulation by the local administration and police.
>
> Sincerely,
> Raman Jit Singh Chima.
> http://stateoftheweb.blogspot.com
>
>
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> End of reader-list Digest, Vol 47, Issue 48
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