Research

Hi, I'm Jo Swabe. Welcome to my research pages! In case you were wondering, I am a sociologist (not a psychologist, ethologist or veterinarian!) by trade and have been working in the field of Human-Animal Relations since 1993.

Animal Ambulance

I have recently begun working on a new ethnographic study of human-animal interactions in the context of an animal ambulance service in the Netherlands.

I have been working as a volunteer and participant observer for the Dierenambulance Amsterdam since November 1998. This is a voluntary and charitable organisation, which operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year, to help sick and injured pets, wild animals and birds.

In a nutshell, my book will be based on my experiences and observations of human-animal interactions at the ambulance and the rich personal narratives of interviewed animal ambulance personnel. Watch this space for more details!

Killing Animals

In 2003, I completed a research project on the social and ethical acceptability of killing (healthy) animals. The results of this research were published in November 2003 in a report entitled Het doden van gehouden dieren: ja, mits… of nee, tenzij? (Killing Domestic Animals). My co-authors were veterinary ethicist Bart Rutgers and veterinarian Elsbeth Noordhuizen-Stassen, who supervised the project.

This project was conducted during my time as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department for Animals and Society , University of Utrecht, The Netherlands and was carried out within the framework of the Incentive Programme Ethics and Policy Issues, which is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

An English language summary of this report is now available here in PDF format. Moreover, a series of articles on various aspects of killing animals should be published in scientific journals in the near future.

Other Recent Research

Another recent project, conducted as a freelance independent scholar (from November 1999 to August 2000), was a research report on Public Health and Livestock Keeping, commissioned by the style Rathenau Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands.

This research project chiefly involved a series of qualitative interviews with individuals concerned with all aspects of livestock production and public health in the Netherlands, from scientists, veterinarians, public health officials, farmers, consumer and animal welfare organisations.

The subsequent report, entitled Van zaadje tot karbonaadje : betrokkenen over de volksgezondheidsrisicos van de veehouderij and published in 2001 (ISBN 903463955), sought to gauge the real and perceived risks involved in the production and consumption of food of animal origin and to assess the possible strategies that may be desirable or could reduce public health risks in the future.

You can download this document for free as a PDF file from the Rathenau Institute's web site. It's in Dutch, however an English language summary is available as part of this document.

Doctoral Research

Until August 1997, I was a post-graduate research fellow at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. My doctoral research focused primarily upon the changing nature of the relationship between humans and domesticated animals and the origins and development of animal medicine. If you're interested, you can read more about the aims and background of the project elsewhere on this site.

I publicly defended my Ph.D. dissertation The Burden of Beasts: A Historical Sociological Study of Changing Human-Animal Relations and the Rise of the Veterinary Regime at the University of Amsterdam, 5th December 1997. A Dutch language summary of this dissertation is available on this page.

Book News

The Burden of Beasts has been published by Routledge under the title Animals, Disease and Human Society: Human-Animal Relations and the Rise of Veterinary Medicine. It has been available since 22nd October 1998, so you can place your orders with Routledge now!!!

Fishy Business

Another of my freelance research commissions was for a museum here in The Netherlands on the subject of fish.

This project looked at cultural attitudes towards fish as food and explores changing eating habits throughout the past couple of centuries. Moreover, it traces the route that this foodstuff takes from the sea to the stomach, looking at methods of preservation, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption from historical perspective.

It's quite a change from the stuff that I've been working on for the past few years, but you know what they say - a change is as good as a rest! The results of this work were published as a book (in Dutch!) in 1998, under the title Vis van zee tot dis (Rijswijk: Elmar). For further details, you can contact the Museum Scheveningen. If I've got a spare moment, maybe I'll work up an English language article on this subject.