The Making of the Brave Sheep or … the Laboratory as the Unlikely Space of Attunement to Animal Emotions. Issue 1 (2nd January 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Miele, Mara
• Is Part Of: GeoHumanities. Volume 2:Issue 1(2016)
• Page Start: 58
• Page End: 75
• Publication Date: 2016-01-02
• Subjects: actor-network theory -- animal emotions -- animal welfare science; 行动者网络理论 -- 动物情绪 -- 动物福祉科学; teoría del actor-red -- emociones animales -- ciencia del bienestar animal; Arts and geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; 304.2
• DOI: 10.1080/2373566X.2016.1167617
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2373-566X

Abstract

Abstract : Cohen (2003) argued that animals, humans, and objects must be appraised together as they form various, temporary clusters of active beings. In this article, drawing on material semiotics and actor-network theory insights, I look at one such temporary cluster of animal scientists and sheep brought together in a specific experiment and a set of animal science practices dedicated to exploring sheep emotions. This experiment was carried out at an animal science farm and laboratory of the National Institute of Agricultural Research in Clermont Ferrand, France, as part of a project on farm animals' emotions (EmoFarm, 2010–2015). Here, I argue, the laboratory can be seen as an unlikely space of attunement to farm animals' emotions, and the sheep body, to borrow from Latour, is what leaves a dynamic trajectory by which she learns to register and become sensitive to what the world is made of (Latour 2004, 205). By looking at this temporary cluster of active beings and what they produce, I engage in a conversation with Agamben's (2009) theory of signatures and Ginzburg's (1989) signatorial method.