Animal law, ethics or veterinary sciences: more and more young people are choosing to embark on a professional path in the service of animal causes.
Campus animaliste, youth association of the Animalist Party, has even produced a collection of training courses directly or indirectly related to this subject.
Margaux, 27, has set her sights on the Masters in Ethics at the University of Strasbourg.
This has offered a specialization in animal ethics since 2015. On the program, ethology (science of animal behavior), philosophy or even the economy and management of wildlife, all supplemented by two internships, of 2 and 6 months.
“I will finally have time to read all the classics in animal ethics and animal rights!
I then plan to use this knowledge in the field of journalism, politics or academic research… I have not decided yet.
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New professions related to the animal cause
Another resolutely multidisciplinary course, the “Animals and Society” university degree from Rennes 2 University will welcome its fourth promotion in a few weeks.
Lasting 77 hours, spread over several months, it is aimed above all at professionals wishing to add skills around the animal condition to their position.
"We receive applications from lawyers, teachers, people in the field of culture, wildlife documentaries, publishing... It's very varied, explains Émilie Dardenne, lecturer and head of the diploma.
Since 2017, there have been more and more elected officials for animal welfare in cities, the field of animal protection continues to professionalize and recruit... Not to mention that the law against animal abuse of 2021 introduces the obligation , for moral and civic education teachers, to raise awareness of respect for pets.
All of this creates an unprecedented need for training, which the University should be able to meet.
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The arrival of animal studies in France
The training in Rennes is part of a field of research and teaching that is still discreet in France: “animal studies”.
In the English-speaking world, this field became institutionalized in the 1990s, through the organization of conferences and the publication of scientific journals, such as Society and Animals, Humanimalia or the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.
In France, there are indeed the Cahiers antispécistes, which, since 1991, disseminate “information and analyzes likely to feed the reflection on the animal condition”.
This journal will play a decisive role for the French antispeciesist movement, but will evolve on the fringes of the academic world until its end of publication, in 2019.
For Jérôme Michalon, researcher in sociology at the CNRS, animal studies are a good example of the phenomenon of “studies”.
“Anchored in the social sciences, studies are fields of research that adopt a more or less committed posture with regard to their object – like studies on gender, disability or racism.
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The academic studies community is concerned with producing knowledge that is useful to activists, and even to the objects of research themselves.
“In the case of animal studies, this concern is reflected in particular by the rejection of anthropocentrism.
The idea is that the description of reality is not complete without taking into account the point of view of the animals and their interests.
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Show white paw
Taking animals seriously as objects of scientific study generates new research questions: "The practices of slaughtering farm animals, euthanasia in animal protection shelters, veterinary clinics or experimental laboratories are investigated. animal: animal death takes a very important place”, observes Jérôme Michalon in an article on the sociology of science proposing a genealogy of animal studies.
“And when we take stock, we realize that indeed, this social interest in the animal cause produces new knowledge.
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But this porosity between scientific issues and pro-animal activism is not to everyone's taste.
"Since I have invested in this field, I have been under pressure, along with other colleagues, from agri-food lobbies and certain political actors, reports Émilie Dardenne, also author of an Introduction to Animal Studies (PUF, 2020).
We must systematically show our credentials.
Finally, we are at the point where the first feminist researchers were, who had to justify why they spoke about the question of women's rights.
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For those who wish to acquire knowledge on the animal question at home, the Virtual University Environment & Sustainable Development offers an online course "Living with other animals".
Free, it requires 2 to 3 hours of work per week, for three weeks.