Extending a Theoretical Lens: Speciesism and the Sport of Greyhound Racing

• In Event: 3140 - Innovations in Sociological Animal Studies

Abstract

A dearth of scholarship exists regarding nonhuman animals in sports. Research on the sport of Greyhound racing has been even more limited with existing research focusing primarily on the violent nature of the sport, such as the injuries associated with racing. This study investigates the larger Greyhound racing community, including fans, owners, trainers, and dogs. Furthermore, this study focuses on the parallels between speciesism and racism in an effort to adapt theoretical framework associated with racism to speciesism from a social and structural perspective. While multiple theoretical perspectives are considered, ultimately, this study will show through semi-structured interviews of Greyhound racing community participants, as well as content analysis of online media (e.g., blogs, social media space, forums) associated with the Greyhound racing community, that the most applicable theories regarding speciesism in the sport of Greyhound racing are racial formation theory (Omi and Winant 1994; Winant 1998), systemic racism (Feagin and Elias 2013), and racialized social systems (Bonilla-Silva 1997). We propose the adapted theoretical frameworks as speciesist formation theory, systemic speciesism, and speciesist social systems.

Authors

• Erin N. Kidder, University of Central Florida

• Nathan Jagoda, University of Central Florida