ICES-3.2 Project: Animals, Culture and Society

The project focuses on the way we understand animals. This is the result of our history and culture; only cultural distinctions make us understand animals in a certain way and consider certain treatments acceptable for some categories of animals but not for others. We learn that animals are different from humans, and that difference implies hierarchy. Our desire to understand animals, their place and ours in the logic of the whole is as old as our culture. Myths, legends, folkloric and religious traditions bear witness to the deep and continuous desire of man to decipher his place in the world, to understand animals and to establish his relationship with them. Such creations, found in all cultures of the world, show us, on the one hand, the desire and interest in understanding other animals, their points of view and their place in the world, and, on the other hand, the limits of our own possibility of knowing and understanding. The research in this project will focus on studying the ways in which we see and understand animals. The main goal is to reconsider the ways in which we have understood other species, the ways in which we have related to them and used them to see how we can use this data to create new ways of seeing and understanding non-human animals.

– no. researchers: 1 full-time researcher, CS III dr. Irina Frasin

– no. doctoral students: –

– no. postdoctoral students: –

Funding – source, amount: –

External collaborations (collaborators from abroad): –

Internal collaborations (collaborators from the country): –

Research theme for 2024:Knowing/Understanding Non-Human Animals as Persons

General objective: Presenting the idea of ​​non-human persons.

Specific objectives: Researching the concept of speciesism; Researching the main paradigms for understanding animals; Researching their ethical implications.

Operational objectives:

O1: Investigating the research topic. Documentation.

O2: Systematizing and disseminating the research results.