Not all dogs go to heaven, some go to Battersea

Sharing suffering and the 'Brown Dog affair

Bibliographic Data

ID3978084
AuthorsBen Garlick (0000-0001-7257-0430, University of Edinburgh, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume16
Issue7
Pages798-820
Publication date2015-10-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2015.1016096
OpenAlexW1999120754
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited43

This paper concerns the memorialisation of a dog's (after)life. It traces the story of the 'Brown Dog': a terrier allegedly vivisected in 1903 by English physiologist Sir William Bayliss and subsequently commemorated by two statues in Battersea, London. Each statue has been the locus for ethical encounters between human and animal, and I draw upon the work of Donna Haraway to explore them. The first, installed in 1906 in Battersea borough, enjoyed a prominent social existence at the centre of Edwardian anti-vivisectionism. The second, by contrast, erected seven decades later in 1985, was welcomed with minimal fanfare and now sits, an obscure curiosity, in a corner of Battersea Park. Both statues attempt to honour the non-human lives lost through the unequal and instrumental power relations of animal testing. Here, I see the statues as experimental means of 'paying attention to' the suffering inflicted through animal experimentation and vivisection, mobilising Haraway's concept of 'shared suffering'. I also argue that their varied success demonstrates how both the nature of and responses to the animal suffering they embody are historically contingent. The paper follows recent trends in animal geography arguing that explorations of 'discomforting encounters' might offer better ways of relating with animals

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Environmental ethics · Heaven · Honour · Human animal · Literature · Livestock · Power (physics · Sociology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Philosophy · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

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