Metaphoric Relationships with Pets

Russell W. Belk


Using depth interviews and participant observation, the predominant metaphors that emerge in pet owners' relationships with their animals are pets as pleasures, problems, parts of self, members of the family, and toys. These metaphors as well as patterns of interacting with and accounting for pets, suggest vacillation between viewing companion animals as human and civilized and viewing them as animalistic and chaotic. It is argued that these views comprise a mixed metaphor needed to more fully understand our fascination with pets.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reflections on Rocky

Morris B. Holbrook


This paper applies an approach that the author calls Subjective Personal Introspection (SPI) to the self-reflective examination, inward-looking understanding, and impressionistic evocation of his own consumption experiences as the keeper of a kitten named Rocky Raccoon. Three-dimensional photographs in the form of stereo pairs provide corroborative evidence for the interpretations suggested. In this reflexive, anecdotal, narrative account, Rocky the Cat emerges as a focal point in the author's experiential consumption.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Safe in Unsafe Places: Leisure, Passionate Avocations, and the Problematizing of Everyday Public Life

Dair L. Gillespie, Ann Leffler, and Elinor Lerner


Leisure is often distinguished from and considered subsidiary to some other world, the "real" world. This paper explores how participation in passionate avocations - leisure pursuits both generating and requiring heavy personal identity investments - affects the public interface between the "real" world and the alternate world of the passionate avocation. We use the world of dog sport enthusiasts to problematize polar conceptualizations of certain important aspects of social life. In particular, we examine shifting experiential definitions of "safe" and "unsafe" public places by looking at how participation in dog sports shapes both the possibility of certain kinds of public interactions and also participants' public identities - how they define themselves and are defined in public. The data come from four major sources. First, since 1992 we have interviewed approximately 50 enthusiasts in various dog sports. Second, by training and showing our own dogs, we enjoy participant observer access to a variety of dog-related activities and people. Third, we are involved in several Internet groups about dogs. Finally, using a technique Denzin (1989) terms "auto-ethnography," two of the authors toured the country for nine months, attending dog sports events and training sessions and conducting interviews.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Dispossession of Animal Companions: A Humanistic and Consumption Perspective

Debra Lynn Stephens and Ronald Paul Hill


This research project examines the dispossession of animal companions by loving owners. The results of two data collections reveal six highly interrelated themes: Love and Friendship, Joy in Life versus Sorrow in Death, Pets as Family Members, Vividness of Unexpected Death, Good-bye Rituals, and Return to Nature. The article closes with a brief discussion of the implications of these themes for service providers and for the education of potential pet owners.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marketing Deviance: The Selling of Cockfighting

Donna K. Darden and Steven K. Worden


We use conventional marketing concepts to examine the marketing of the deviant and stigmatized activity of cockfighting and show how the two differ. Our research is based on several years of active participant observation with cockfighters and the examination of several publications devoted to the sport. We find a paradoxical situation wherein people who compete with each other in an illegal activity must also establish their reputations for honesty and trustworthiness. Aspects of a gerontocracy characterize this deviant world.
 

For FULL TEXT of all issues, including the most current, click FULL TEXT

To order Society & Animals Journal, go to our secure online ordering page

You can Search the online issues of Society & Animals, as well as the entire Society & Animals Forum (formerly PSYETA) website,
for topics and keywords of your interest: