Description
Book SynopsisExamining social imaginaries is important for exploring how we might live differently. This interdisciplinary book combines ethical, narrative, and media analysis to investigate emerging ideas regarding human-animal interaction and cohabitation in Australia in the twenty-first century. The authors appraise the range of conventions, standards, and narratives that have driven Australians’ interactions with animals. They further trace how animal advocates, activist groups, and other influencers are calling for change, together with inspiring everyday Australians to better consider the status and wellbeing of animals in Australia. In this work they draw on a wide range of sources: from activist campaigning and well-known cultural narratives to diverse forms of mainstream media production and scientific analysis. They examine the treatment of livestock animals, common understandings of companion animals, the protection of threatened species, the complexity of living alongside native animals, and the possible rewilding of Australian communities and landscapes. The book also addresses the question of what living in more-than-human, multispecies communities might mean and look like in practice. In every chapter the authors endeavour to better understand how Australians live alongside animals and imagine how better models for interaction, cohabitation, and communal living with animals might be built.
Table of ContentsContents: – Imagining Human- Animal Relations in the Australian Anthropocene – Riding the Sheep’s Back: From Live Stock to Sentience – Transitioning Australia’s Meat- Eating Culture – Making Friends and Kin with Companion Animals: Skippy to Red Dog – Neither Food nor Friend: Cohabiting with the Animals Out There – Stewardship, Sustainability, and Protecting the Great Barrier Reef – Different/ Together: Building More- Than- Human Communities.
