- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Conference Proceedings: found
Love Me to Death: A Performative Ritual with Rats
Abstract
Rat and human populations inhabit the same space. Rats as a species have been given different kinds of classifications, from lab and fancy rats to pests and even circus animals. The sociozoo-logic scale ranks humans higher than other animals within a structure of meaning that allows hu-mans to define, reinforce and justify their interactions with other beings (DeMello, 2012: 51). Hu-mans have labelled rats within roles that can be both good (e.g., pets and lab rats, thus useful) and bad (e.g., pests that spread diseases, thus harmful).
I argue that the spreading of diseases, such as the plague, has been one of the reasons why hu-mans have a controversial relationship with rats, causing them to be despised. Rats, like humans, may have multiple identities. I propose that by imagining their perspectives empathetically, hu-mans can look at rats as beings from which humans can learn. I attempt to situate rat–human con-troversies and their multiple relations within the era of ecocide which is environmental destruction due human actions. How could the idea of the rat be better understood within the human communi-ty, and what could this idea reveal about humans themselves? How are rats metaphorically scape-goated for human troubles, and could this metaphor be a symbol representing the relations hu-mans within ecosystems in general? How can these questions be emphasised in a performance in the context of art?
Content
Author and article information
REFERENCES
Anon, (2020) Alive together I: Human and animal relationships in laboratory and beyond. Available from: http://alivetogether.i3s.up.pt. (31.5.2021).
Apopo (2019) APOPO: Training rats to save lives. Available from: http://www.apopo.org/en. (24.8.2021).
C. Bell (1997) Ritual: Perspectives and Dimen-sions. Oxford University Press, New York.
K. Beumer (2014) Catching the rat: Understanding multiple and contradictory human-rat relations as situated practices. Society and Animals, 22, 8–25.
I. Bergman (1957) The Seventh Seal. AB Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden
G. Brown (2003) Theorizing ritual as performance: Explorations of ritual indeterminacy. Journal of Ritual Studies, 17, 3–18.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Na-tional Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infec-tious Diseases (2017) Diseases directly transmit-ted by rodents. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/rodents/diseases/direct.html. (9.5.2021)
K. R. Dean, F. Krauer, L. Walløe, O. C. Lingjærde, B. Bramanti, N. C. Stenseth, B. V. Schmid, (2018) Human ectoparasites and the spread of plague in Europe during the Second Pandemic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienc-es, 115, 1304–1309.
M. DeMello (2012) Animals and Society: An Intro-duction to Human-Animal Studies. Columbia University Press, New York.
D. Dennis, K. Gage, N. Gratz, J. Poland and E. Tikhomirov (1999) Plague manual : Epidemi-ology, distribution, surveillance and control. Ge-neva: World Health Organization.
A. El-Sayed and M. Kamel (2021) Coronaviruses in humans and animals: the role of bats in viral evolution. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28,19589–19600.
A. Flood (2020) Publishers report sales boom in novels about fictional epidemics. The Guardian. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/05/publishers-report-sales-boom-in-novels-about-fictional-epidemics-camus-the-plague-dean-koontz. (26.8.2021).
R. Gibb, L. Franklinos, D. Redding and K. Jones (2020) Ecosystem perspectives are needed to manage zoonotic risks in a changing climate. The BMJ (Clinical Research Edition), 371, 1–8.
E. Imber-Black (2020) Rituals in the time of COVID-19: Imagination, responsiveness, and the human spirit. Family Process, 59, 912–921.
F. Keesing and R. S. Ostfeld (2021) Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(17), e2023540118.
J. Kreinath (2018) Ritual. In Hilary Callan (ed).The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. John Wiley & Sons, New York and Oxford.
S.H. Kim (2020) Max Weber. In Stanford Encyclo-pedia of Philosophy. Available from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/#IdeTyp. (10.5.2021)
B. G. Meerburget al. (2014) Distribution of antico-agulant rodenticide resistance in Rattus norvegi-cus in the Netherlands according to Vkorc1 mu-tations. Pest Management Science, 70, 1761–1766.
J. Jyoti Mistry (2021) Poiesis Trough Film Practice. The 12th SAR Conference on Artistic Research of the Society for Artistic Research, 9 April 2021, Vienna.
T. Nagel (1974) What is it like to be a bat? Philo-sophical Review, 83, 435–450.
M. Nichols (2003) Angels in America. HBO Films, USA.
H. Oswald (2008) Detecting Danger - Africa’s Gi-ant Rats. Taglicht Media Production, Germany.
S. Rodeck (2019) Dying with infinity mushrooms: Mortuary rituals, mycoremediation and multi-species legacies. Kvinder Køn & Forskning, 28, 62–73.
A. Seligman, R. Weller, M. Puett, and B. Simon (2008) Ritual and Its Consequences: And Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. Oxford University Press, New York.
H. Simberg (1896) Garden of Death. Finnish Na-tional Gallery. Available from: http://www.kansallisgalleria.fi/en/object/421535. (26.8.2021).
Street Art Bio (no date) Blek le Rat. Available from: http://www.streetartbio.com/artists/blek-le-rat-biography. (23.8.2021)
H. Travis (2016) Ecocide: A brief history of an ex-plosive concept. Columbia Journal of European Law. Available from: http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/cjel/preliminary-reference/2016/ecocide-a-brief-history-of-an-explosive-concept. (26.8.2021)
D. Xygalatas (2020) Why people need rituals, es-pecially in times of uncertainty. The Conversa-tion. Available from: http://theconversation.com/why-people-need-rituals-especially-in-times-of-uncertainty-134321. (26.8.2021)