Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crisis: Multispecies Sociology for the New Normal

This book situates sociological research as a vital tool for understanding, and responding to, the multispecies entanglements that cause, inform and arise from states of crisis involving the environment, climate and zoonotic disease transmission. Considering the consequences of a range of multispecies engagements that challenge the perceived distinction between the social worlds of humans and other animals, it explores the themes of crisis through a range of studies, including ecological disturbance, consumer culture, intensive farming and interspecies relations in urban life. With attention to central questions about life in ’the now normal’, including the extent to which a human-animal perspective can contribute to our understanding of pandemics, the ideological foundations of mainstream norms for human-animal relations and the scope of current and emerging social movements for reshaping human-animal relations, this volume represents a timely and important call for a sociological vision to embrace the implications of a multispecies planet and to expand the concepts of inclusion and justice. A reconsideration of the human-animal relation that seeks both to revise sociology’s past and inform its future, Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crises will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in human-animal relations and the environment.

Josephine Browne is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Australia.

Zoei Sutton is a Lecturer in Sociology at Flinders University pursuing critical, non-human animal-centric research.