scholarly journals The life of an XPA-mouse. A posthumanist approach to becoming with humans in laboratory and law

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-51
Author(s):  
Anne Van Veen
Keyword(s):  
Transgenic Mice ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Laboratory Mouse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Mouse Response

This article is about mice. More specifically about several generations of transgenic mice, XPA-mice, that were born, lived and died in a Dutch laboratory where they were exposed to carcinogens to test if they were more sensitive to these substances than ‘regular’ mice. Taking a posthumanist approach, I analyze the daily lives of these mice as a multispecies choreography. This choreography involves mice, humans and technologies such as cages, performing together to produce ‘the XPA-mouse’ as laboratory mouse. The focus is on daily doings and bodily entanglement, rather than linguistics, making it more inclusive of human bodies, nonhuman animals and materials. However, for the different phrases of this choreography, I do not only discuss what is included but also which moves have been foreclosed, which worlds and accompanying mouse response-abilities have been excluded? This focus on exclusion will show how interspecies power relations both within the lab and within social and legal discourse have greatly constraint the meaning of agency for these particular mice.

‘To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man’: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-351
Author(s):  
Paul Mihai Paraschiv ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Relations ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Farming Practices ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Insight Into

“To Speak of Cattle is to Speak of Man”: Anthroparchal Interactions in John Connell’s The Farmer’s Son. The present paper intends to build a critique of contemporary farming practices, based on Erika Cudworth’s theory of “anthroparchy.” By exemplifying how anthroparchal interactions function in John Connell’s memoir, I will outline the becoming of a posthuman farmer that awakens certain sensibilities towards nonhuman animals, in ways that compel a rethinking of gendered relations, patriarchy, violence, and capitalist interests. The analysis provides a needed insight into recent developments in Irish rural farming, detailing the position of the human subject in relation to nonhuman otherness and describing some of the changes that need to be made regarding the power relations that are at work within patriarchal systems. To this extent, Cudworth’s theoretical framework and Connell’s memoir are proven to be contributing to the necessary restructuring of farming practices and of human-nonhuman interactions. Keywords: anthroparchy, posthumanism, gender relations, zoomorphism, capitalism, farming

Geographers and sexual difference: feminist contributions

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda McDowell
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Geographical Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
Definition Of

Divisions based on the assumption that men and women are different from one another permeate all areas of social life as well as varying across space and between places. In the home and in the family, in the classroom or in the labour market, in politics, and in power relations, men and women are assumed to be different, to have distinct rights and obligations that affect their daily lives and their standard of living. Thirty years ago, there were no courses about gender in British geography departments. This chapter discusses the challenges to geographical knowledge, and to the definition of knowledge more generally, that have arisen from critical debates about the meaning of difference and diversity in feminist scholarship. It examines a number of significant conceptual ideas, namely: the public and the private; sex, gender and body; difference, identity and intersectionality; knowledge; and justice. Finally, it comments on the role of feminism in the academy as a set of political practices as well as epistemological claims.

Feminist Politics, Domestic Violence and the State

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nickie Charles
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Feminist Politics ◽  
Permanent Housing ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Important Object ◽  
The Relationship

This paper explores the relationship between feminist politics and the state around the issue of domestic violence. Its focus is the refuge movement in Wales. Feminist analyses of the state and feminist political practice identify the state as an important object of struggle. A particular form of feminist politics, the refuge movement, has engaged with the state while retaining its autonomy. It has been instrumental in effecting legal changes which bestow certain rights on women threatened with domestic violence, and in increasing women's access to resources in the form of temporary refuge and permanent housing. Feminist political practice can affect the distribution of resources through engaging with the state, thereby enabling women to challenge the gendered power relations which structure their daily lives.

scholarly journals Effect of Crossing C57BL/6 and FVB Mouse Strains on Basal Cytokine Expression

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Szade ◽  
Witold N. Nowak ◽  
Krzysztof Szade ◽  
Anna Gese ◽  
Ryszard Czypicki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Skeletal Muscle ◽  
Transgenic Mice ◽  
Mouse Strain ◽  
Laboratory Mouse ◽  
Cytokine Expression ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mouse Strains ◽  
Laboratory Mouse Strain ◽  
Common Strategy ◽  
Different Strains

C57BL/6 is the most often used laboratory mouse strain. However, sometimes it is beneficial to cross the transgenic mice on the C57BL/6 background to the other strain, such as FVB. Although this is a common strategy, the influence of crossing these different strains on homeostatic expression of cytokines is not known. Here we have investigated the differences in the expression of selected cytokines between C57BL/6J and C57BL/6JxFVB mice in serum and skeletal muscle. We have found that only few cytokines were altered by crossing of the strains. Concentrations of IL5, IL7, LIF, MIP-2, and IP-10 were higher in serum of C57BL/6J mice than in C57BL/6JxFVB mice, whereas concentration of G-CSF was lower in C57BL/6J. In the skeletal muscle only the concentration of VEGF was higher in C57BL/6J mice than in C57BL/6JxFVB mice. Concluding, the differences in cytokine expression upon crossing C57BL/6 and FVB strain in basal conditions are not profound.

scholarly journals Neuroethics, Painience, and Neurocentric Criteria for the Moral Treatment of Animals

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHERRY E. LOVELESS ◽  
JAMES GIORDANO
Keyword(s):  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Moral Treatment ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Naturalistic Philosophy ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Moral Attitudes

Abstract:Neuroscience affords knowledge that can be leveraged in the ontological valuation of individuals, groups, and species. Sociocultural sentiments, norms, and mores may impede embracing such knowledge to revise moral attitudes, ethics, and policies. We argue that the practices of neuroethics will be valuable in that they ground ethico-legal discourse in (1) naturalistic philosophy; (2) the current epistemological capital of neuroscience; (3) the issues, problems, and solutions arising in and from neuroscientific research and its applications; and 4) the use of neurocentric criteria—such as painience—to define and resolve ethical decisions regarding attitudes toward and treatment of nonhuman animals.

Social Realities

Animal Rights ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Waldau
Keyword(s):  
Daily Lives ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Consumer Choices ◽  
Environmentally Sensitive

In the daily lives of humans are many opportunities to protect or harm nonhuman animals. Through consumer choices, environmentally sensitive acts, or treatment of nearby animals, individual humans create animal protections or harms. For this reason, social realities are as important as are the...

scholarly journals A P2rx7 passenger mutation affects the vitality and function of immune cells in P2X4ko and other transgenic mice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Er-Lukowiak ◽  
Yinghui Duan ◽  
Francois Rassendren ◽  
Lauriane Ulmann ◽  
Annette Nicke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
T Cells ◽  
Transgenic Mice ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Laboratory Mouse ◽  
Embryonic Stem ◽  
Mouse Strains ◽  
Cell Populations ◽  
And Function ◽  
Passenger Mutations ◽  
Passenger Mutation

AbstractAmong laboratory mouse strains many genes are differentially expressed in the same cell population. As consequence, gene targeting in 129-derived embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and backcrossing the modified mice onto the C57BL/6 (B6) background can introduce passenger mutations in the close proximity of the targeted gene. Here, we demonstrate that several 129-originating transgenic mice in which P2rx7-neighboring genes were targeted carry a P2rx7 passenger mutation that affects the vitality and function of T cells. By the example of P2rx4tm1Rass we demonstrate that CD4+ and CD8+ T cells derived from these mice express higher levels of P2X7 when compared to corresponding cell populations in B6-WT mice. The increased T cell sensitivity towards the P2X7 activators adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) rendered these cells more vulnerable towards NAD-induced cell death (NICD) compared to their B6-WT counterparts. The enhanced NICD sensitivity significantly affected the outcome of functional assays e.g. cytokine production and cell migration. For P2rx4tm1Rass, we demonstrate that the expression of P2X7 is diminished in several innate immune cell populations, possibly as a side effect of P2rx4 targeting, and independent of the P2rx7 passenger mutation. These results need to be considered when working with P2rx4tm1Rass mice or other 129-based transgenic strains that target P2rx7 neighboring genes and might have implications for other mouse models.

Genetically Engineered Nonhuman Animals: A Global Overview and Research Agenda

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Oliver Keane
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Genetically Engineered ◽  
The Body ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
State Scale

AbstractThis paper suggests studies on genetically engineering nonhuman animal genes have globalized over the last 30 years. The results unveil maps that give a global overview of universities’ studies into engineering animal genes, by purpose and by species, at a state scale. A network map also shows how studies on engineering animal genes are co-constituted internationally, at a state scale. Some of the more notable map findings are developed using a novel ontological approach. This ontology relates the being of an animal, a constitutive lack, to power relations. The beings of animals are trapped into serving capital through the engineering of their genes. This reconfiguration allows the ensnaring of the body in agricultural, or other, power relations. The scale of this carceral archipelago is positioned as a global risk. Life energy, by nature, resists capture. Therefore, the paper concludes that the clock is ticking on genetic scientists’ Faustian bargain.

The Wild Life of Law: Domesticating Nature in the Bering Sea, c. 1893

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-36
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. McLennan
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Bering Sea ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
Legal Questions ◽  
Fur Seal ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
The Status ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Bering Sea ◽  
Wild Life

During the fur seal wars of the 1880s and 1890s, the contested territory of the Bering Sea was the site of international disputes over commercial access to the sealing trade. These conflicts were based upon long-standing international concerns about the status of unincorporated territories, including open seas, and nonhuman animals, whether wild or domestic. The legal questions generated by the fur seal wars laid the ground for a new legal discourse regarding the use, access, ownership, and care of natural resources. This discourse relates to new, globally conscious ways of thinking about nature, wildness, nonhuman animals, and the relationships among ecology, commerce, and empire.

scholarly journals Apparatuses of Animality: Foucault Goes to a Slaughterhouse

2010 ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Thierman
Keyword(s):  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Methodological Tool ◽  
Foucauldian Analysis

The work of Michel Foucault is not often considered in animal ethics discussions, but I believe that many of his insights can be fruitfully extended into this area of philosophical inquiry. In this paper, I present the slaughterhouse as a technology of power that is complicit in the domination and objectification of both human and nonhuman animal subjects. I begin by arguing that Foucault’s notion of an “apparatus” is a useful methodological tool for thinking about the constellation of spaces and discourses in which various bodies (both human and nonhuman) find themselves enmeshed. Next, I outline Foucault’s multifaceted conceptualization of “power,” and I consider whether it makes sense to think of other animals as implicated in “power relations” in the various Foucauldian senses. Finally, I analyze a journalistic account of a contemporary slaughterhouse. Here, I argue that a variety of hierarchies (spatial, racial, species, etc.) dovetail to create an environment in which care and concern are virtually impossible. By coupling a Foucauldian analysis with certain insights developed in the bioethical work of Ralph Acampora, I offer a normative critique of an institution that has pernicious effects on both human and nonhuman animals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document