Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Nonhuman Animal rights activists are sometimes dismissed as ‘crazy’ or irrational by countermovements seeking to protect status quo social structures. Social movements themselves often utilize disability narratives in their claims-making as well. In this article, we argue that Nonhuman Animal exploitation and Nonhuman Animal rights activism are sometimes medicalized in frame disputes. The contestation over mental ability ultimately exploits humans with disabilities. The medicalization of Nonhuman Animal rights activism diminishes activists’ social justice claims, but the movement’s medicalization of Nonhuman Animal use unfairly otherizes its target population and treats disability identity as a pejorative. Utilizing a content analysis of major newspapers and anti-speciesist activist blogs published between 2009 and 2013, it is argued that disability has been incorporated into the tactical repertoires of the Nonhuman Animal rights movement and countermovements, becoming a site of frame contestation. The findings could have implications for a number of other social movements that also negatively utilize disability narratives.
Recommended Citation
Wrenn, C. L., Clark, J., Judge, M., Gilchrist, K. A., Woodlock, D., Dotson, K., ... & Wrenn, J. (2015). The medicalization of Nonhuman Animal rights: frame contestation and the exploitation of disability. Disability & Society, 30(9), 1307-1327.
Included in
Animal Studies Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons
Comments
In compliance with the publisher’s copyright and archiving policies, this is a post-print version of the document. Post-print materials contain the same content as their final edited versions, but are not formatted according to the layout of the published book or journal.