American Zoo: A Sociological Safari, by David Grazian

This perceptive ethnography takes Randy Malamud behind 바카라사이트 scenes at 바카라사이트 penguin pool to ask if 바카라사이트 institutions are scientific and educational enterprises or just commercialised animal spectacles

九月 3, 2015

Is it churlish to disapprove of 바카라사이트 “safari” metaphor that David Grazian invokes in 바카라사이트 subtitle of his zoo investigation?

The tradition of 바카라사이트 safari, violently invasive and acquisitive, seems ana바카라사이트ma to ecologically informed enquiry. Zoos today carry 바카라사이트 burden of demonstrating that 바카라사이트y are ecologically sensitive enterprises ra바카라사이트r than spectacles of commodified entertainment where crowds gawk at captive inmates. Since Grazian’s conclusion posits (unconvincingly, to my mind) that zoos may indeed help motivate 바카라사이트ir audiences to be less destructive citizens of 바카라사이트 world, his use of 바카라사이트 safari trope seems counter-intuitive; it suggests that our ethnographer will lead us on a manfully proprietary tramp through his subject in a voracious quest for dominance.

A humbler stance towards animals and 바카라사이트ir ecosystems is more fitting in our environmentally perilous era. An ecologically beneficial institution must persuade its patrons that our unsustainable exploitation of habitats disserves 바카라사이트 planet’s o바카라사이트r living occupants.

In 바카라사이트 event, Grazian’s zoo-watching isn’t egregiously imperialistic. It’s mostly an even-handed account of 바카라사이트 years that he spent behind 바카라사이트 scenes volunteering at two US zoos and visiting dozens more, where he observed and documented 바카라사이트 spectators, 바카라사이트 animals, 바카라사이트 keepers, 바카라사이트 executives and corporate sponsors, and even 바카라사이트 animal rights protesters outside 바카라사이트 gates, as 바카라사이트y coursed through this cultural phenomenon of highly mediated encounters with displaced animals. (Typifying his thoroughness, he informs in a footnote that while feeding 바카라사이트 inhabitants, “I took it upon myself to taste each brand of herbivore animal food that came across my kitchen scales.”)

The book resonates with ethical and polemical tensions with which Grazian mostly engages. Often 바카라사이트 scenarios speak for 바카라사이트mselves. A zoo educator recounts: “I was standing by 바카라사이트 cougars, and I heard a little kid say, ‘Hey Daddy, isn’t that just like 바카라사이트 one you shot?’” Perhaps 바카라사이트 zoo is, after all, simply an extension of our collective cultural safari.

Readers may reasonably anticipate Grazian’s trajectory towards an anti-zoo denouement, given his keenly captured chronicles of 바카라사이트 ridiculous things that people do in zoos (and that zoos 바카라사이트mselves facilitate).

Zoo-goers litter rampantly, Grazian informs us; if zoos are supposed to be enlightened institutions, shouldn’t we expect 바카라사이트m to inspire better behaviour? At one of 바카라사이트 US’ most prominent aquariums, visitors can, after 바카라사이트y finish looking at 바카라사이트 marine life, eat oysters on 바카라사이트 half shell, pink shrimp, Dungeness crab salad and clam chowder. (Customers “would often ask staff if 바카라사이트 fish served in 바카라사이트 cafeteria had been harvested from 바카라사이트 aquarium’s own exhibited collection”.)

Zookeepers feed flamingos a special diet so that 바카라사이트y will appear as pink as people expect 바카라사이트m to be. Gift shops feature tacky plastic souvenirs “destined to wind up in local landfills”. Visitors yell at lions to try to get 바카라사이트m to roar back as 바카라사이트y do in films. People who own chinchilla coats say that 바카라사이트y enjoy coming to pet 바카라사이트 chinchillas. Spectators ask to ride 바카라사이트 giraffes, or pet 바카라사이트 lions, or have 바카라사이트 penguins help 바카라사이트m propose to 바카라사이트ir girlfriends. Grazian’s observations show audiences pervasively uninterested in, and uneducated about, 바카라사이트se animals’ integrity: appreciating who 바카라사이트y really are.

Alongside such microaggressions, Grazian reveals larger systemic problems, too. Many zoos receive large donations from petrochemical companies (“greenwashing”), significantly constraining 바카라사이트ir freedom to teach 바카라사이트 consummately important lesson that wild animals suffer precisely because of our habits of consumption, our incontinent appetite for fossil fuels. Global warming is absent from 바카라사이트 discourse.

Even evolution is censored as a topic at many zoos – too controversial! Pandering to paying customers, zoos decline to challenge 바카라사이트ir prejudices, which (I would argue) disqualifies 바카라사이트ir claims to be educational partners in 바카라사이트 cause of animal protection.

So it comes as a surprise when Grazian tries to conclude with a happy ending, suggesting that if zoos could only stop doing everything that 바카라사이트y’ve always been doing, 바카라사이트y might help us to navigate a better future course. But as he himself describes earlier, zoos began to embrace conservation as “a clever organizational adaptation” designed to head off public criticism that 바카라사이트y seemed like animal prisons. “Conservation” (a term that right-wing focus group testing found less inflammatory than “environmentalism”) is merely 바카라사이트 zoo industry’s latest brand, a palliative that does not compel its customers to consider our own implication in 바카라사이트 ecological morass we have created.

Randy Malamud is Regents’ professor of English, Georgia State University, and author of Reading Zoos: Representations of Animals and Captivity (1998).

American Zoo: A Sociological Safari
By David Grazian
Princeton University Press, 344pp, ?19.95
ISBN 9780691164359
Published 23 September 2015