Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores how the identities of those who rescue purebred dogs are shaped in reaction to the social stigma they apply to activists. The rescue workers associate activists, especially animal rights activists, with extremism and radicalism, which violates their apolitical, “mainstream” principles of animal care and social change. Rather than perceiving themselves as part of a social movement fighting for the rights of animals, the rescuers perceive themselves as individual advocates working quietly to change the lives of individual dogs. By lacking a collective identity as activists, they disengage themselves from the history of animal rights and animal welfare programs. This reinforces the notion that identities are constructed in relation to other collective identities and social movements.