Porcher (2017), "Animal Work"

Jocelyne Porcher, “Animal Work.” Chapter 16, pages 302-318, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Linda Kalof, editor, 2017.

• Besides the more obvious ones, working animals include “rats who detect landmines, vultures who find bodies on mountains, and cetaceans who help in climate studies [p. 303]”

• The notion of "natural behavior" for domesticated animals is misplaced. Effective animal workers need recognition, though this need is generally neglected. 

• “We owe an immeasurable debt to domestic animals that we do not seem to have any intention of honoring [p. 303]”

• Both abolitionists and high-tech folks (behind animal-free foods) are seeking a world without domestic animals -- are we trying to reject our own animal nature?

• Animal work can be mutually rewarding, and can co-construct our identities; for anymals, work is important, but it is not about production. Our pets work.

• Anymal activity (like beavers building dams) is not work (in the author’s sense) unless it aims to make the world more habitable both for the anymals and for humans (p. 307).

• Human or anymal work is not just drudgery when its outcomes are judged to be useful by the hierarchy and beautiful by peers – again, social recognition is central.

• Farm animal death greatly complicates the “working” lens -- a complication that doesn't arise in other sectors.

• In anymal work, humans and anymals must successfully engage in inter-species communication (p. 311).

• Affection is needed for successful animal work, but humans often need to keep affection in check.

• Cooperation (and hence confidence) is indispensable for successful anymal work; rules and their infringements are negotiated.

• The anymal capacity to co-create and alter the rules makes the work interesting for them (p. 313). 

• But work isn’t play, as one can always stop playing.

• Anymals understand when work is over (p. 314).

• Anymals want to give pleasure to their human partners, and vice versa – they like connection, it is a part of recognition.

• Better retirements for working anymals are a neglected element of recognition.

• Affection and death are the elements of (large-scale) animal work that are not a part of human work.