Kendra Coulter | |
---|---|
Nationality | Canadian |
Occupation | Professor |
Known for | Humane jobs, animal protection |
Awards | 2015 Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies Book Prize |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Toronto, Huron University College |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Labour studies,Human–animal studies,Organization studies |
Institutions | Huron University College |
Notable works | Revolutionizing Retail:Workers,Political Action,and Social Change (2014) Animals,Work,&the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity (2016) |
Notable ideas | Interspecies solidarity Humane jobs |
Kendra Coulter is a Canadian scholar who is Professor in Management and Organizational Studies at Huron University College at Western University. [1] She is the author of Revolutionizing Retail:Workers,Political Action,and Social Change (2014),Animals,Work,and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity (2016),and Defending Animals:Inside the Front Lines of Animal Protection (2023). She is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.
Coulter was trained as an anthropologist,studying at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Toronto. [2] [3] She is the co-editor of Governing Cultures:Anthropological Perspectives on Political Labor,Power,and Government,along with William R. Schumann,which was published in 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan. [4]
Coulter's first monograph,Revolutionizing Retail:Workers,Political Action,and Social Change was published in 2014 by Palgrave Macmillan. The book explores the retail sector,examining how the lives of workers in the industry can be improved. She first examines the nature of retail work,and then looks to the successes and promise of retail unions in changing workers' lives and situations. Coulter then considers retail more broadly,examining a range of possible avenues for political change including through public policy. Amanda Pyman,who reviewed the book for Times Higher Education ,said that it was "Essential reading for all employment relations scholars ... Coulter should be commended for this valuable contribution to what is still,despite the prominence of retail in global economies,an understudied sector. In the process,she offers a valuable reminder of the importance of workers' struggles in organising for social change." [5] [6] Revolutionizing Retail was awarded the 2015 Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies book prize. [7]
In her second monograph,2016's Animals,Work,&the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity,Coulter examines the work people do with animals as well as the work done by animals,drawing upon a range of theoretical perspectives including feminist political economy. Coulter argues hat the work done by and for animals has been underexplored in labour and organizational studies and human-animal studies,Coulter not only analyses these topics,arguing that animals' work should be recognised as such,but critically engages with them,offering alternative ways to conceptualise the place of animals in the workplace and society,with a focus on improving lives and alleviating suffering. She introduced and elucidates the concept of ecosocial reproduction [8] to recognise the effects of wild animals' labour on ecosystems. Coulter later expanded on the concept of humane jobs and how it can be used to encourage social change. [9] [10] [11] On the website of her Humane Jobs project,Coulter writes that "There are compelling ethical and environmental reasons to move the workforce away from damaging patterns and towards more sustainable and positive practices and employment sectors. We can and should create humane jobs." [12] This scholarship has significantly influenced human-animal studies and Susanna Hedenborg calls it "unique,interesting,and important."
In 2017,in recognition of her research achievements,Coulter was one of the 70 academics chosen to become a member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars,Artists and Scientists. [13] [14] In the same year,she was awarded the Brock University Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence,which recognises her "outstanding contributions in her field and encourages her position as a path-breaking scholar in research about animals". [15] In 2020,she published the edited collection Animal Labour:A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice? with Oxford University Press. The book was co-edited with the legal scholar Charlotte E. Blattner and the philosopher Will Kymlicka.
In 2020,Coulter was invited to serve on the Government of Ontario's Provincial Animal Welfare Services Advisory Table. [16] She is also a member of the Canadian Violence Link Coalition's Strategic Planning Committee [17] and of the City of London's Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. [18]
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals,organizations,and nations are endowed with or acquire specialised capabilities and either form combinations or trade to take advantage of the capabilities of others in addition to their own. Specialised capabilities may include equipment or natural resources as well as skills,and training and combinations of such assets acting together are often important. For example,an individual may specialise by acquiring tools and the skills to use them effectively just as an organization may specialise by acquiring specialised equipment and hiring or training skilled operators. The division of labour is the motive for trade and the source of economic interdependence.
Labour economics,or labor economics,seeks to understand the functioning and dynamics of the markets for wage labour. Labour is a commodity that is supplied by labourers,usually in exchange for a wage paid by demanding firms. Because these labourers exist as parts of a social,institutional,or political system,labour economics must also account for social,cultural and political variables.
Henry Armand Giroux is an American-Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States,he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy,cultural studies,youth studies,higher education,media studies,and critical theory. In 2002 Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.
William Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism and animal ethics. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston,and Recurrent Visiting Professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest,Hungary. For over 20 years,he has lived a vegan lifestyle,and he is married to the Canadian author and animal rights activist Sue Donaldson.
In mainstream economic theories,the labour supply is the total hours that workers wish to work at a given real wage rate. It is frequently represented graphically by a labour supply curve,which shows hypothetical wage rates plotted vertically and the amount of labour that an individual or group of individuals is willing to supply at that wage rate plotted horizontally. There are three distinct aspects to labor supply or expected hours of work:the fraction of the population who are employed,the average number of hours worked by those that are employed,and the average number of hours worked in the population as a whole.
Anthrozoology,also known as human–nonhuman-animal studies (HAS),is the subset of ethnobiology that deals with interactions between humans and other animals. It is an interdisciplinary field that overlaps with other disciplines including anthropology,ethnology,medicine,psychology,social work,veterinary medicine,and zoology. A major focus of anthrozoologic research is the quantifying of the positive effects of human–animal relationships on either party and the study of their interactions. It includes scholars from fields such as anthropology,sociology,biology,history and philosophy.
Elaine Bernard is the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She is also a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which she describes as offering "an opportunity to reach across borders,time zones,organizations,communities,and individual interests and grow solidarity".
Robert Garner is a British political scientist,political theorist,and intellectual historian. He is a Professor Emeritus in the politics department at the University of Leicester,where he has worked for much of his career. Before working at Leicester,he worked at the University of Exeter and the University of Buckingham,and studied at the University of Manchester and the University of Salford.
Immanuel Ness is a scholar of worker's organisation,migration,mobilisation and politics and labour activist teaching at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.
The working class comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work,who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs,and most pink-collar jobs. Members of the working class rely exclusively upon earnings from wage labour;thus,according to more inclusive definitions,the category can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies,as well as those employed in the urban areas of non-industrialized economies or in the rural workforce.
Kirsten Sehnbruch is a British Academy Global Professor and Distinguished Policy Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sehnbruch is known for her work on conceptualising and measuring the quality of employment,particularly in developing countries. Her research subjects include quality of employment,multidimensional indicators,Latin American labour markets,labour relations,Chilean politics and public policy.
Critical animal studies (CAS) is an interdisciplinary field in the humanities and social sciences and a theory-to-activism global community. It emerged in 2001 with the founding of the Centre for Animal Liberation Affairs by Anthony J. Nocella and Steven Best,which in 2007 became the Institute for Critical Animal Studies (ICAS). The core interest of CAS is ethical reflection on relations between humans and other animals,firmly grounded in trans-species intersectionality,environmental justice,social justice politics and critical analysis of the underlying role played by the capitalist system. Scholars in the field seek to integrate academic research with political engagement and activism.
Siobhan O'Sullivan is an Australian political scientist and political theorist who is currently an associate professor in the School of Social Sciences,University of New South Wales. Her research has focused,among other things,on animal welfare policy and the welfare state. She is the author of Animals,Equality and Democracy and a coauthor of Getting Welfare to Work and Buying and Selling the Poor. She co-edited Contracting-out Welfare Services and The Political Turn in Animal Ethics. She is founding host of the regular animal studies podcast Knowing Animals.
Political Animals and Animal Politics is a 2014 edited collection published by Palgrave Macmillan and edited by the green political theorists Marcel Wissenburg and David Schlosberg. The work addresses the emergence of academic animal ethics informed by political philosophy as opposed to moral philosophy. It was the first edited collection to be published on the topic,and the first book-length attempt to explore the breadth and boundaries of the literature. As well as a substantial introduction by the editors,it features ten sole-authored chapters split over three parts,respectively concerning institutional change for animals,the relationship between animal ethics and ecologism,and real-world laws made for the benefit of animals. The book's contributors were Wissenburg,Schlosberg,Manuel Arias-Maldonado,Chad Flanders,Christie Smith,Clemens Driessen,Simon Otjes,Kurtis Boyer,Per-Anders Svärd,and Mihnea Tanasescu. The focus of their individual chapters varies,but recurring features include discussions of human exceptionalism,exploration of ways that animal issues are or could be present in political discourse,and reflections on the relationship between theory and practice in politics.
The term animal–industrial complex (AIC) refers to the systematic and institutionalized exploitation of animals. It includes every economic activity involving animals,such as the food industry,animal testing,medicine,clothing,labor and transport,tourism and entertainment,selective breeding,and so forth. Proponents of the term claim that activities described by the term differ from individual acts of animal cruelty in that they constitute institutionalized animal exploitation.
Vegan studies or vegan theory is the study of veganism,within the humanities and social sciences,as an identity and ideology,and the exploration of its depiction in literature,the arts,popular culture,and the media. In a narrower use of the term,vegan studies seeks to establish veganism as a "mode of thinking and writing" and a "means of critique".
Ester Reiter is an American-Canadian historian and sociologist. She is a Professor Emerita in the School of Gender,Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University. In 2017,her book A Future Without Hate or Need was shortlisted for the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature.
Corey Lee Wrenn is an American sociologist specializing in human-animal studies,the sociology of the animal rights movement,ecofeminism,and vegan studies. She is presently a lecturer in the School of Social Policy,Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent.
Marilyn ('Lyn') Ossome is an academic,specialising in feminist political theory and feminist political economics. She is currently Senior Research Associate of at the University of Johannesburg and a member of the advisory board for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa,amongst other accolades. She is an editorial board member of Agrarian South:Journal of Political Economy,and in 2021,she co-edited the volume Labour Questions in the Global South. She serves on the executive committee for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). She is the author of Gender,Ethnicity and Violence in Kenya’s Transitions to Democracy:States of Violence.
Miranda Greenstreet is a Ghanaian academic and educationist.