Some we love, some we eat: Human-animal relationships in the global marketplace

Animals are everywhere and nowhere in modern societies. Except for the pets and animals in zoos, most animals are segregated from human’s everyday lives. Yet we eat them, wear them and consume them on a daily basis. In a globalising world, our diverse relationships with animals stimulate questions on compassion, economics, urbanisation, transnational mobility, global ethics and citizenship.

The promotion of animal rights and ending animal cruelty is often regarded as one key mission for the 21st century global citizens and has become a global social movement. There is now an increasing awareness of the global economy of animal trading and entertainment industry, rethinking the sociological, anthropological and scientific distinctions of human and non-human animals, and also of the new patterns of human-animal co-existence in urban cities. This course aims at stimulating students’ critical reflections upon different social constructions and moral implications of our relationships with the non-human creatures across cultures and societies in the global marketplace.