Exploring non-human work in tourism

From beasts of burden to animal ambassadors

Jillian M. Rickly, Carol Kline, Carol Kline, Jillian M. Rickly, Carol Kline, Jillian M. Rickly

• Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9783110659757
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110660043
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Critical animal studies is increasingly interfacing with tourism research in an effort to shed light on the various ways animals are incorporated into touristic experience. Exploring non-human work in tourism: From beasts of burden to animal ambassadors builds upon the theoretical connections of animal ethics, agency, and welfare as it foregrounds specifically the work that animals perform in the industry. While some types of animal labor are more readily identified, readers of this volume may be surprised by how many forms of animal labor are overlooked. Taking a widely international perspective, with cases from the Arctic, China, Costa Rica, China, Finland, Greece, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, this volume offers readers diverse scenarios of animals working. The book is arranged along three themes of work. Performative work focuses on the animals whose performances are front and center of tourists' motivations and experiences. Value-added work turns attention to the co-working relationships of animals, while the political work of animals as ambassadors and icons is examined within the chapters on hidden labor. Additionally, the book makes theoretical considerations of the implications of positioning animals as workers and offers reflections on ways this focus on working animals extends current scholarship in the field.

1 Introduction: Working for the (hu)man in the tourism industry

Jillian M. Rickly

Carol Kline

An animal labor perspective – why now?

Tourism is an ideal context for the study of human-animal relations, as tourism facilitates numerous types of animal interactions. Indeed, “one would be hard pressed to find a destination where animals were not used in some capacity for tourism purposes – animals held in captivity, circuses, rodeos, racing, fighting, pursued in sports, and as workers” (Fennell, 2015, p. 27). The research focused on wildlife tourism (Shackley, 1996; Higginbottom, 2004; Newsome, et al. 2005; Lovelock, 2008; Rodger, Moore, & Newsome, 2009), as well as captive animals as attractions (Cohen & Fennell, 2016; Desmond, 1999; Frost, 2011; Yerbury, Boyd, Lloyd, & Brooks, 2017; Winter, 2020), has arguably garnered the most attention in the field, with scholars interested in tourists’ motivations and experiences of such encounters. However, along with a broader renewed interest in the ethical concerns of tourism, known as the “moral turn” (Caton, 2012), researchers have begun interrogating the ethics of our engagements with animals in the tourism industry with fresh perspectives. Such work reconsiders the notion of human-animal relations with greater emphasis on animal sentience and welfare (Fennell, 2012; Carr & Broom, 2018; Carr & Young, 2018). In fact, Fennell (2015) identifies five distinct theoretical approaches to animal ethics that have important implications for human-animal interactions in tourism: welfarist, animal rights, utilitarianism, ecocentrism, and ecofeminism. Moreover, Winter (2020) observes several ethics frameworks in her analysis of 74 articles and several books related to animals and tourism, including those articulated by Fennell, as well as instrumentalism. Rather than recite each of these theoretical approaches here, we encourage the reader to continue on with the chapters that follow, as these frameworks are each covered in varying detail therein.

As a result of this moral turn and the rise of critical animal studies in the field, greater attention is now being given to the labor animals perform in the tourism industry. Indeed, much of the work animals do in tourism goes unnoticed. While the animals who work as performers might quickly come to mind, such as dolphin tricks, elephant rides, or falconry displays, there are many other types of labor that are supplementary to tourist attractions, including horse-pulled carts for transporting tourists, cat cafes, or fish pedicures at spa destinations. Further still, some highly valuable animal labor is mostly performed out of sight, such as sniffer dogs in security and customs settings. Can these animals be labelled as “employees” if they are not paid, asks Carr and Broom (2018) of animal “workers” in the tourism industry? When considering the work animals do, it is vital to maintain our attention to the fact that this “work” is interpreted through human eyes and for human needs. As a result of such thinking, we must also ponder what “work” means to animals and if it can be conceptualized as a dialectical relationship to “leisure.” This is a theme taken up by both Dashper (Chapter 2) and Carr (Chapter 3) in the following two chapters, respectively, as the authors navigate the theoretical implications of this construct and its positionality.

While acknowledging that work is a human construct, we aim with this book to extend a critical lens to interrogate the diverse forms of animal labor found in tourism. In doing so, we reveal the nuances of animals as entertainment, while also drawing attention to the value-added labor performed tangentially to tourism attractions, as well as the hidden labor that is performed outside of our view or simply easily overlooked.

Welfare and animal (workers’) rights

While scholars are increasingly raising questions as to the ethics of human-animal interactions in tourism, this book treats the issue of ethics as secondary as it aims primarily to investigate the kinds of work that animals perform in tourism. Of course, such investigations often include discussions of ethics, as several authors in this collection explain (see Fennell, Chapter 15; Garcia-Rosell & Tallberg, Chapter 7; Lopez & Venegas, Chapter 5; Tully & Carr, Chapter 6; Vasilopoulou, Chapter 10; Venegas & Lopez, Chapter 4). Nevertheless, this book is far from an exhaustive analysis of the ethical dimensions of animal labor. Towards that goal, we would recommend David Fennell’s (2012) Tourism and Animal Ethics and Neil Carr and Donald M. Broom’s (2018) Tourism and Animal Welfare, as well as a number of edited collections, including Kevin Markwell’s (2015) Animals and Tourism: Understanding Diverse Relationships, Neil Carr and Janette Young’s (2018) Wild Animals and Leisure: Rights and Wellbeing, and Carol Kline’s (2018a) Animals, Food, and Tourism and (2018b) Tourism Experiences and Animal Consumption: Contested Values, Morality, & Ethics. As a result of focusing foremost on animal labor, we engage less with the complex and nuanced ethical debates regarding the question of whether animals should be exploited within the tourism industry. While a worthwhile question in its own right, we know that animals do, in fact, work in the tourism industry. As such, that is where we begin this conversation. This starting point thus inspires a discussion of the relations of animal welfare, well-being, agency, and their rights as workers.

Animal welfare, according to Hill and Broom, is “the state of an animal as regards its attempts to cope with its environment” (2009, p. 532). As Fennell (2015, p. 30) notes, animal welfarists are concerned with the quality of animals’ lives “not whether animals should be used by humans” (see also Bekoff & Nystrom, 2004). According to Bekoff and Nystrom (2004), an animal’s quality of life relates to their basic needs of food, water, shelter, but also extends to their treatment by humans, that is, whether humans are fulfilling their obligations to animals in terms of keeping them from pain and suffering. Yet, these responsibilities are set against the benefits that humans derive from the use of animals such that human benefits can sometimes be deemed to outweigh the pain, suffering, and even death of animals. Assessments of animal welfare, then, consider distinct aspects of animal life, including their natural behaviors, health and physiology, and feelings and mental state (see Hewson, 2003), and often use a scalar measure (very poor to very good). While generic applications of these categories to all scenarios can be problematic, as animal lives and living conditions vary so drastically (see Kistler, 2004), Fennell (2015, p. 30) summarizes the “five freedoms” as a generally accepted measure of gaging animal welfare: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury and disease; freedom to express normal behaviors; and freedom from fear and distress. More specifically, Carr and Broom (2018, p. 17–19) identify a range of needs that are essential to welfare:

• To have sufficient oxygen and good quality air
• To carry out feeding to maintain themselves and grow
• To have good environmental water quality
• To maintain osmotic and other body fluid stability
• To receive appropriate sensory input
• To rest and sleep
• To exercise and have space for movement
• To have appropriate social interactions
• To avoid fear
• To explore
• To thermoregulate
• To carry out reproductive and maternal functions
• To maintain good health condition
• To perform maintenance and eliminatory behavior
• To avoid pain and injury

While a more subjective concept than welfare, some organizations that work with animals choose to also concern themselves with animal agency. A brief search on animal agency outside of tourism reveals a robust body of work addressing the topic with abundant tourism examples: race horses, captive whales, sled dogs, hunted animals, etc. (Dietz & York, 2015; Hribal, 2007; McFarland & Hediger, 2009). Indeed, Nance (2013) devotes an entire volume to the agency of elephants working in the circus. Additionally, within animal studies literatures, topics of agency, sentience, and moral standing are discussed extensively; for example, Carter and Charles (2013, p. 322) distinguish between primary agency and corporate agency, noting animals “act and their actions have consequences, they also resist conditions which they do not like and, in some circumstances, are able to change the conditions of their agency.” Further, Špinka (2019) outlines four levels of agency: passive/reactive agency, action-driven agency, competence-building agency, and aspirational agency. The “essential core of the concept of an agent,” argues Steward (2009, p. 221), can be characterized by “how we should go about deciding which animals might be thought of as falling under it.” Dietz (2006, p. 45) examines the role of animals as workers, among other uses, suggesting:

animal agency is not always at the service of the production of human well-being. Animals act in idiosyncratic ways that occasionally can be dangerous, vexing, and somewhat inefficient when they are viewed as a resource used for production. Thus, the history of human interactions with domestic animals has involved the invention and refinement of methods to exert control over the agency of domestics – sometimes gently, sometimes cruelly.

Hribal (2007, p. 105) outlines many forms of animal resistance, and ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Introduction: Working for the (hu)man in the tourism industry
• Part 1: Theoretical considerations
• Part 2: Performative work
• Part 3: Value-added work
• Part 4: Hidden labor
• Index