Comments on “Sacrificial Symbolism in Animal Experimentation: Object or Pet?” By Arnold Arluke, with a Response by the Author

Anthrozoos II:2 carried on pages 98 through 117 an article based on ethnographic research conducted in animal-research laboratories. The paper argued that sacrifice is an ambivalent concept in the culture of animal experimentation, requiring both objectification of and identification with the laboratory animal. The author argued that, because of this ambivalence, laboratory animals are not accorded a single, uniform, and unchanging status but are seen simultaneously as objects and pets. The animals are objectified by incorporation into the protocol, by isolation, by transformation into commodities, and by situational definition. At the same time, laboratory workers develop relationships with the animals that resemble those between owners and pets. These relationships can be divided into four categories: enshrined pets, epitomized by pictures, cartoons, and objects of animals in the laboratory; liberated pets, epitomized by animals removed from the laboratory before experimentation; saved pets, epitomized ...