Complicating the Human-Animal Divide
Animal Studies looks at the relationship between humans and animals. Humans and animals have interacted for centuries, and over time, the relations between them have become an important field of scientific study. For my portfolio, I chose the lion as an example animal through which I will discuss various human-animal relationships. My preference for the lion was a personal one: I’ve always thought they were mysterious and majestic, dangerous yet loyal. I could list another one hundred adjectives to describe these animals but the characteristics I attribute to them would always be human. I chose the lion because, even though I risked selecting a popular and cliché animal, it almost felt as if I was selecting a human subject.
Humans have related to lions in a multitude of ways. For example, lions have often been depicted in art, such as drawing in the Chauvet cave in France. Most likely, they were drawn to emphasize to viewers the relationship between the lion as hunter and the human as hunted. On the contrary, lions are often hunted for sporting purposes. Lion hunts are prevalent in native cultures (discussed in part 3) as well as modern-day activities. Lions have become endangered because of humans that hunt them for sport, or for meat and bone consumption (Poplak 2014, 68). As such, the most obvious relationship humans have with the lion is that of predator and prey – with the roles being interchanged over time so that predator and prey become one and the same. This raises several important issues surrounding conservation. Interestingly, some individuals choose to keep lions as exotic pets. This has lead to the misrepresentation of lions and other wild animals as “friendly” and “family”, contributes to an escalation of conservation issues, and raises important questions surrounding animal ethics. What is less obvious is that lions also play an important symbolic role. Lions have become an increasingly popular choice for imaging on flags and brand logos. This is because the portrayal of lions in film anthropomorphizes them, and we immediately attribute to them human traits such as power, loyalty and leadership. Often lions are used to represent the values of the country flag or company logo on which they are depicted. In fact, lions are now used as images to represent human nature. The fact that lions are repeatedly anthropomorphized, and humans are often zoomorphised and given lion-like characteristics suggest that lions play an important part in our understanding of humans. By treating lions and humans as one and the same in film or as pets, or even when using motivational quotes, the human-animal divide becomes further complicated.
Animal Studies looks at the relationship between humans and animals. Humans and animals have interacted for centuries, and over time, the relations between them have become an important field of scientific study. For my portfolio, I chose the lion as an example animal through which I will discuss various human-animal relationships. My preference for the lion was a personal one: I’ve always thought they were mysterious and majestic, dangerous yet loyal. I could list another one hundred adjectives to describe these animals but the characteristics I attribute to them would always be human. I chose the lion because, even though I risked selecting a popular and cliché animal, it almost felt as if I was selecting a human subject.
Humans have related to lions in a multitude of ways. For example, lions have often been depicted in art, such as drawing in the Chauvet cave in France. Most likely, they were drawn to emphasize to viewers the relationship between the lion as hunter and the human as hunted. On the contrary, lions are often hunted for sporting purposes. Lion hunts are prevalent in native cultures (discussed in part 3) as well as modern-day activities. Lions have become endangered because of humans that hunt them for sport, or for meat and bone consumption (Poplak 2014, 68). As such, the most obvious relationship humans have with the lion is that of predator and prey – with the roles being interchanged over time so that predator and prey become one and the same. This raises several important issues surrounding conservation. Interestingly, some individuals choose to keep lions as exotic pets. This has lead to the misrepresentation of lions and other wild animals as “friendly” and “family”, contributes to an escalation of conservation issues, and raises important questions surrounding animal ethics. What is less obvious is that lions also play an important symbolic role. Lions have become an increasingly popular choice for imaging on flags and brand logos. This is because the portrayal of lions in film anthropomorphizes them, and we immediately attribute to them human traits such as power, loyalty and leadership. Often lions are used to represent the values of the country flag or company logo on which they are depicted. In fact, lions are now used as images to represent human nature. The fact that lions are repeatedly anthropomorphized, and humans are often zoomorphised and given lion-like characteristics suggest that lions play an important part in our understanding of humans. By treating lions and humans as one and the same in film or as pets, or even when using motivational quotes, the human-animal divide becomes further complicated.