Programme full

Stream Plenaries and Special Sessions
FRIDAY 17 APRIL 2015 17:00-18:00
Cute Power: Anthropomorphic 'Enhancement' and Ethical Regression in Digital Representations of Other
Animals
Cole, M., Stewart, K.
(Open University)
In this paper we critically analyse digital media as a cultural space in which children interact with dominant
representations of other animals. In these spaces, we argue that children are socialized into dominant practices (such
as eating other animals’ flesh) and acceptance of the mediation of human-nonhuman animal relations through a
capitalist lens of commodification. For instance, in social media games such as ‘Farmville’ or ‘Family Farm’, players
adopt a ‘farmer’ role and control a farm or ranch populated with ‘cute’ representations of other animals. The
deployment of ‘cute style’ legitimates and conceals the violence that underpins dominant practices in the non-digital
realm. Furthermore, we argue that digital representations cultivate and channel children’s empathy in ways which tend
to insulate those violent and exploitative practices from critical questioning, while simultaneously developing and
enacting valued character traits of compassion, caring and responsibility. Children thereby tacitly learn to internalize
and reproduce the skills of ‘correctly’ categorizing other animals, and therefore their ‘correct’ relationships with them
(to eat them, love them, spectate them and so on). We argue that caring relationships are therefore restricted to
‘types’ of animals that reproduce dominant human-nonhuman animal relationships and do not disturb exploitative
capitalist practices, resulting in a profound impoverishment of children’s capacity for ethical critique of human violence
towards other animals.
Author Biographies
Dr Matthew Cole is an Honorary Associate and Associate Lecturer with the Open University. Dr Kate Stewart is a
Lecturer in Social Aspects of Medicine and Health Care at the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham. Their first
jointly authored book, a critical sociological analysis of the socialization of human-nonhuman animal relations in
childhood, was published by Ashgate in Autumn 2014: Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of
Human-Animal Relations in Childhood. Their research interests also include the genealogy and representation of
veganism and the relationship between public health and plant-based diets.
Chair: Dr Rhoda Wilkie (University of Aberdeen)
Lifecourse
C236, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
YOUTH IN TRANSITION: PROGRESSION OR REGRESSION
The concept of ‘youth in transition’ can be understood in two interlinked ways. Firstly, in terms of youth transitions –
from education to work, but also in relation to family, housing, leisure and political citizenship – which remain a
prominent but contested concern for the sociology of youth. Secondly, we can reflect on how the social changes of the
late 20th and early 21st Centuries have impacted on young people’s lives; in other words, whether youth as a lifestage
is itself in transition. The extension of this period of life and the complexity of youth transitions have led to
debates concerning greater choice in young people’s paths alongside the ongoing influence of structural factors.
Rising living standards are no longer guaranteed, and both popular and academic anxieties surround the prospects for
current and future generations.
Roberts, K.
(University of Liverpool)
This paper identifies successive periods since the mid-20th century between which there have been major changes in
the youth life stage. These are the era of the baby-boomers, the knowledge economy, and the 21st century. It is
argued that the current period is different from all predecessors in several important ways. The paper also assesses
sociology’s progress in understanding youth. It is argued that progress has been uneven. Sociology has been better at
describing outcomes than in explaining historical trends and changes. Also, progress has been much greater in the
analysis of education-to-work, and family, household and housing life stage transitions than in grasping the
significance of youth cultures or youth as political actors.
Ken Roberts is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Liverpool. His books include Key Concepts in
Sociology (2009), Youth in Transition: Eastern Europe and the West (2009), Class in Contemporary Britain (2011),
and Sociology: An Introduction (2012).
39 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University