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Information System for Agriculture and Food Research

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Animal - human - society. Interdisciplinary approaches to animal research

Collaborative Project


Contract period: 01.01.2014 - 31.12.2016
Budget: 3600000 Euro
Coordinating institution: Hessian Ministry for Science and Arts

The relation of man to animal is ambivalent since the beginning of civilization: Animals are for example meat suppliers, often they are regarded as enemies (for example, so-called pests or predators), but sometimes also as best friends. Even in the early days of man animals counted as first art motifs, at times they were seen as incarnations of gods, then man used them as test objects. The focus of the sixth LOEWE funding series continues with current debates about the treatment of animals in (animal testing, factory farming, animal rights), but does consciously go beyond it. One goal is to bring forth these discussions through systematic policy considerations. On one hand Kassel scientists assume that people and animals need to be considered in relation to each other. On the other hand they ask about the historical and social conditions of that relationship. Because different constellations brought and bring out very different forms of the human-animal relationship. At the same time conceptions and realities of human and animal are changing. Studies will be made on all forms of 'creation' of animals, whether through breeding (selection, awarding of a prize), animal husbandry (livestock, zoo animals), animal research (behavioral science, medical research) depictions of animals (narrative, visual).

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Collaborative Projects

Project area A: distinction and hierarchization

Project area C: acquisition and representation

Project area D: Cognition and Emotion

Research projects

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