The Time is Now

by Kenneth Shapiro, Ph.D., ABBP

I am delighted to be part of the All Life Institute’s effort to establish a network of scholars interested in using their professional platforms to advance progressive policies and practices involving our relationship with other animals.

The seeds of my interest in developing and supporting a scholar-advocates network date back to the 1980s when I convened a meeting of interested scholars in attendance at a conference in Raleigh, N.C., hosted by the Culture and Animals Foundation and Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the predecessor organization of Animals and Society Institute (ASI). At that meeting, we conceived of the idea of establishing a journal for the study of human-animal relationships that would provide credible scholarly support for the animal protection movement.

This idea became Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies, which began in 1993 and continues through today, highlighting the resilience of the field of Human-Animal Studies. The Animals and Society Institute was a long-running think tank dedicated to advancing knowledge about human-animal relationships and using this knowledge to improve the lives of animals.

In the two generations since then, the field of Human-Animal Studies (also known as Animal Studies and Critical Animal Studies) has grown beyond our wildest expectations. I am gratified that ASI has contributed to this dramatic growth by publishing three journals in the field (Society and Animals: Journal of Human Animal Studies, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, and Sloth: A Journal of Emerging Voices in Human-Animal Studies), hosting summer institutes for graduate students, supporting the development of curricula internationally, and compiling a
web-based resource of courses, minors, and majors.

Through this Scholars’ Network, we will encourage scholars to include policy recommendations in their research, to fashion research responsive to current policy issues and unharnessing scholars to contribute in practical ways to policy solutions and to mass communications of important ideals and relevant insights.

With the established credibility of the Human-Animal Studies field, its growing international presence, and the public and political recognition that scholarship is necessarily influenced by personal values and beliefs, scholars are increasingly comfortable advocating for social justice causes.  Child psychologists and environmental scientists are expected and, really, demanded to contribute findings and recommendations in their respective subject areas.

So why not Human-Animal Studies scholars?

We invite you to be a part of this exciting, new network of scholars that will drive reform on behalf of animals in Congress, in corporate America, among consumers, and all people concerned about the well-being of life and the many remarkable forms it takes.

Kenneth Shapiro, PhD, ABPP
Founder, Animals and Society Institute
Founding Editor, Society & Animals
Co-founder, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science
Founding Editor, Brill Human-Animal Studies Book Series