Furry Family

Furry Families Be(a)ware of the dog

Ideology • Maps of meaning that form the basis of a political, economic, social or other system. • An ideology can be thought of as a way of looking at things, proposed by the dominant class of a society and adopted by all members of this society.

Ideology of the family • The ideology of the family consists of all those values and norms that instruct us on how ‘ideal’ family life should be lived.

Origins • The concept of the family dominant at the present time arose during the late 18th century. • The ideology was devised by and served to mark the middle class off from the decadence of the upper class and the immorality of the working class.

Ideology in action

Ideology in action

The home • Geographies of the home show that the house is a complex space that both shapes and is shaped by the individual inhabitants, and the society in which they live.

Dog house

Dog house

Humans and other animals • Within the Judaeo-Christian philosophical tradition the earth and all within it was created to serve man. • Human / animal divide – with humans believed to be superior to animals. • Aristotle saw reason as separating humans from other animals.

Humans and other animals • Aquinas asserted that the souls of animals did not survive their death, unlike those of humans. • Descartes argued that animals were no more than machines having no mind and being unable to feel pain.

• This binary divide between animals and humans was not universal. • Some enlightenment thinkers, including some within the major western religions, like Francis of Assisi, valued nature and kindness towards others.

God and his dog

Humanist views • It is thought that humanist views on other animals arose with the shift from huntergatherer societies to agrarian societies. • The species barrier has a functional effect, legitimating the exploitation of animals. • Humanist ideology also had implications for our understanding of the world – including science.

Dog evolution • An early theory on the domestication of dogs explained that hunters of about 12,000 years ago brought home wolf pups which they tamed. • Recent research suggests that dogs domesticated themselves, in that wolves hanging around human camps developed behaviours that were rewarded. This happened around 130,000 years ago.

• The domestication of creatures that were once wild was seen as evidence of human domination over the animals. • However, recent evidence suggests that wolves influenced the evolution of humans just as much as humans influenced the development of dogs from wolves.

Species barrier Close relationships between humans and animals has been seen as ‘unnatural’ .

Species barrier The narratives of reversion to humanity from a beast or a frog reinforces the species barrier.

Post-human world • Some theorists argue that we live in a posthuman world, in which the absolute boundaries between humans and nonhumans, wildness and civilization, nature and society have been broken down and all beings are connected in a series of overlapping ‘webs’ of activity.

• Donna Haraway Companion Species Manifesto Exposes the permeability of the species barrier which has been defended by science and religion and supported by legal systems and economic regimes.

Kinship diagrams

Statistics • 88% of pet owners in Australia see their pet as part of the family (49% in the USA)

Ambivalence • Currently the majority of pet owners see their pets as ‘like us’. • 1950s popular dog names: – Rover, Spot, Lassie, Buddy, Daisy

• 2008s popular dog names: – Max, Jake, Lucy and Molly

Ambivalence • Dominant ideology sees them as ‘other’ – – – – –

Laws excluding them from family spaces Laws treating them as ‘property’ Economic exclusion (no puppy bonus). Education is optional Animal cruelty treated separately

Pack animals • This ambivalence is reflected in the widespread practice of producing the multispecies family using a pack model, with a human dominated hierarchy . • Leadership is coded through spatial dynamics and the ordering of social activity, based in a belief that dogs are sensitive to the symbolic meanings of these things to humans.

Power relations Pack leadership’ as a model for humandog interaction. The pack model bridges the divide between ‘outsider’ and ‘family’.

Dog needs and preferences Dogs do have agency in contemporary families.

Pack relations are understood as an interaction between humans and dogs-as-species. Dog owners report developing relationships with particular individual dogs.

Pets occupy a liminal position • Pets exist on the boundaries between ‘human’ and ‘animal’ • Pets are seen by their human companions as both ‘human’ and ‘animal’.

Bad dog! Dogs that deviated from the perceived norms were likely to have their family membership questioned.

Inter-relationships. • Dogs are shaped to fit within the expectations of appropriate family and home behaviour. • The concept of family is broadened by peoples’ efforts to include dogs-as-dogs, and by the agency of individual dogs which shapes the way that ‘family’ is experienced.

The family as institution • The family, constituted as two parents and two or more children, is often viewed as an institution that is naturally given, and thus is automatically viewed as socially and morally desirable.

Family ideology • Family ideology has been a vital means of holding together and legitimating the existing social, economic, political and gender systems. • Challenging the ideology thus means challenging the whole social system.