IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001202107

Dogs, History, and Agency (2013)

Pearson, Chris (Author)

History and Theory
Volume: 52, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 128-145
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

DOI: 10.1111/hith.10683

Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Special Issue: “Does History Need Animals?”

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Animals Geography Human-animal relationships Animal psychology Dogs; cats Animal behavior Anthropology Science and culture Individuality World War I 20th century, early

Drawing on posthumanist theories from geography, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS), this article argues that agency is shared unevenly between humans and nonhumans. It proposes that conceptualizing animals as agents allows them to enter history as active beings rather than static objects. Agency has become a key concept within history, especially since the rise of the new social history. But many historians treat agency as a uniquely human attribute, arguing that animals lack the cognitive abilities, self-awareness, and intentionality to be agents. This article argues that human levels of intentionality are not a precondition of agency. Furthermore, it draws on research into canine psychology to propose that dogs display some degree of intentionality and self-directed action. The aim is not to turn dogs, or any other animals, into human-style agents nor to suggest that they display the same levels of skill, intentionality, and intelligence as humans. Instead, the objective is to show how dogs are purposeful and capable agents in their own way and to explore how they interact with human agents. The article particularly considers the agency of militarized dogs, especially those on the Western Front (1914--1918), to suggest how historians can use primary sources to uncover how individuals in the past have treated dogs as capable creatures and to capture some sense of dogs'embodied and purposeful agency.

...More

Included in

Article Shaw, David Gary (2013) A Way with Animals. History and Theory (pp. 1-12). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001202107

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Chris Pearson; (2016)
Between Instinct and Intelligence: Harnessing Police Dog Agency in Early Twentieth-Century Paris

Article Rose, Anne C.; (2012)
Animal Tales: Observations of the Emotions in American Experimental Psychology, 1890--1940

Thesis Gravitte, Kristen Barber; (2013)
Animal Ethics and Ethical Animals: American Literature and Science, 1849--1906

Thesis Elizabeth A. McNeill; (2022)
Speaking of Animals: Animal Psychology between Experimental Science and Imagination (1840-1920)

Article Kirk, Robert G. W.; (2014)
In Dogs We Trust? Intersubjectivity, Response-Able Relations, and the Making of Mine Detector Dogs

Book Mikhail, Alan; (2014)
The Animal in Ottoman Egypt

Article Edmund Ramsden; (2018)
A Neurotic Dog’s Life: Experimental Psychiatry and the Conditional Reflex Method in the Work of W. Horsley Gantt

Chapter Tortorici, Zeb; (2013)
“In the Name of the Father and the Mother of All Dogs”: Canine Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals in Bourbon Mexico

Article Gillaspy, James Arthur, Jr.; Brinegar, Jennifer L.; Bailey, Robert E.; (2014)
Operant Psychology Makes a Splash---In Marine Mammal Training (1955--1965)

Article Gordon L. Miller; (2021)
The rain calls of frogs and the reigning paradigm of American herpetology

Article John Block Friedman; (2022)
A bonnacon’s defensive tactics in medieval natural history

Book Richard C. Francis; (2016)
Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World

Article Palmeri, Frank; (2006)
Ethical Animals in La Mettrie, Darwin, and de Waal

Article Lucyna Kostuch; Beata Wojciechowska; Sylwia Konarska-Zimnicka; (2019)
Ancient and Medieval Animals and Self-recognition: Observations from Early European Sources

Chapter Gray, Liz; (2014)
Body, Mind and Madness: Pain in Animals in Nineteenth-Century Comparative Psychology

Article Stefano Gensini; (2011)
Il "De brutorum loquela" di Girolamo Fabrici d'Acquapendente

Article Rangarajan, Mahesh; (2013)
Animals with Rich Histories: The Case of the Lions of Gir Forest, Gujarat, India

Book Karen Raber; Monica Mattfeld; (2017)
Performing Animals: History, Agency, Theater

Book Ian P. Wei; (2020)
Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians on the Boundary Between Humans and Animals

Book Nicolas Langlitz; (2020)
Chimpanzee Culture Wars