Edge cases in animal research law: Constituting the regulatory borderlands of the UK's Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act.

This paper explores how the boundaries of the UK's Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A) are constituted, as illustrative of the rising importance of legal procedures around animal research and how these are continuously being challenged and questioned. Drawing on empirical work in animal research communities, we consider how it is decided whether activities are undertaken for an "experimental or other scientific purpose". We do this by focusing on "edge cases", where debates occur about whether to include an activity within A(SP)A's remit. We demonstrate that the boundaries of animal research regulation in the UK are products of past and present decisions, dependencies, and social relationships. Boundaries are therefore not clear-cut and fixed, but rather flexible and changing borderlands. We particularly highlight the roles of: historical precedent; the management of risk, workload, and cost; institutional and professional identities; and research design in constituting A(SP)A's edges. In doing so, we demonstrate the importance of paying attention to how, in practice, animal law requires a careful balance between adhering to legal paragraphs and allowing for discretion. This in turn has real-world implications for what and how science is done, who does it, and how animals are used in its service.

Animal research nexus: a new approach to the connections between science, health and animal welfare.

Animals used in biological research and testing have become integrated into the trajectories of modern biomedicine, generating increased expectations for and connections between human and animal health. Animal research also remains controversial and its acceptability is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare. We introduce this argument through, first, outlining some key challenges in UK debates around animal research, and second, reviewing the way nexus concepts have been used to connect issues in environmental research. Third, we explore how existing social sciences and humanities scholarship on animal research tends to focus on different aspects of the connections between scientific research, human health and animal welfare, which we suggest can be combined in a nexus approach. In the fourth section, we introduce our collaborative research on the animal research nexus, indicating how this approach can be used to study the history, governance and changing sensibilities around UK laboratory animal research. We suggest the attention to complex connections in nexus approaches can be enriched through conversations with the social sciences and medical humanities in ways that deepen appreciation of the importance of path-dependency and contingency, inclusion and exclusion in governance and the affective dimension to research. In conclusion, we reflect on the value of nexus thinking for developing research that is interdisciplinary, interactive and reflexive in understanding how accounts of the histories and current relations of animal research have significant implications for how scientific practices, policy debates and broad social contracts around animal research are being remade today.

Amphibious ethics and speculative immersions: laboratory aquariums as a site for developing a more inclusive animal geography.

Human capacity to sense and respond to the suffering of non-human animals is key to animal care and welfare. Intuitively these modes of relating seem best suited to interactions between humans and warm-blooded mammals who share human-like facial features and characteristics. Animal geographers and those working in animal welfare have noted the challenges that humans face in learning to care about fishes, and how this leads to welfare guidelines and regulations which are poorly suited to aquatic species. This paper draws on interviews with laboratory aquarists and biomedical researchers to explore how they have learnt to sense and respond to the needs of fishes in the laboratory. We offer two key observations. Firstly, despite significant bodily differences, humans find ways to empathise with fishes. Secondly, whilst observations of bodies and behaviours predominate in laboratory mammal welfare assessments, when working with fishes water quality serves as an important proxy for species health. We conclude that the laboratory aquarium signifies methodological and conceptual limits in contemporary animal geographies. We further argue that these barriers should be understood as cultural, and - as we demonstrate - that there is consequently scope and capacity to reach beyond them by engaging in amphibious ethics and speculative immersions.

Animal welfare chauvinism in Brexit Britain: a genealogy of care and control.

This paper uses the deployment of animal welfare as an issue during the 'Brexit' referendum as a lens through which to explore the mutual shaping of discourses about care for animals in Britain and the British nation, or the nationalism of animal welfare. Adopting a genealogical outlook, it uses one political advertisement in particular-paid for by the official Vote Leave campaign-as a focalising image and means of opening up the issues, leading to an empirical emphasis on the issue of live animal export as it has mediated ideas about Europe and British identity. Introducing the idea of 'animal welfare chauvinism', the paper suggests that animal welfare messages in the context of this constitutional debate were products of chauvinistic and caring impulses which are mutually constitutive and crystallised through discourses formed in relation to contingent historical struggles. Analytically, stress is placed on the constructive role of situated and repeated discursive exchanges, occurring between animal advocates and other national political elites, within which 'care for animals' as a national ideal is forged. In this light, the article concludes with reflections on the stakes of entering into an already existing conversation on the 'national culture of care' for animals in Britain.

Animal Research beyond the Laboratory: Report from a Workshop on Places Other than Licensed Establishments (POLEs) in the UK.

Research involving animals that occurs outside the laboratory raises an array of unique challenges. With regard to UK legislation, however, it receives only limited attention in terms of official guidelines, support, and statistics, which are unsurprisingly orientated towards the laboratory environment in which the majority of animal research takes place. In September 2019, four social scientists from the Animal Research Nexus program gathered together a group of 13 experts to discuss nonlaboratory research under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A) of 1986 (mirroring European Union (EU) Directive 2010/63/EU), which is the primary mechanism for regulating animal research in the UK. Such nonlaboratory research under the A(SP)A often occurs at Places Other than Licensed Establishments (POLEs). The primary objective of the workshop was to assemble a diverse group with experience across a variety of POLEs (e.g., wildlife field sites, farms, fisheries, veterinary clinics, zoos) to explore the practical, ethical, and regulatory challenges of conducting research at POLEs. While consensus was not sought, nor reached on every point of discussion, we collectively identified five key areas that we propose require further discussion and attention. These relate to: (1) support and training; (2) ethical review; (3) cultures of care, particularly in nonregulated research outside of the laboratory; (4) the setting of boundaries; and (5) statistics and transparency. The workshop generated robust discussion and thereby highlighted the value of focusing on the unique challenges posed by POLEs, and the need for further opportunities for exchanging experiences and sharing best practice relating to research projects outside of the laboratory in the UK and elsewhere.

"The disadvantages of a defective education": identity, experiment and persuasion in the natural history of the salmon and parr controversy, c. 1825-1850.

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an argument raged about the identity of a small freshwater fish: was the parr a distinct species, or merely the young of the salmon? This "Parr Controversy" concerned both fishermen and ichthyologists. A central protagonist in the controversy was a man of ambiguous social and scientific status: a gamekeeper from Scotland named John Shaw. This paper examines Shaw's heterogeneous practices and the reception of his claims by naturalists as he struggled to find a footing on the "gradient of attributed competence" (Rudwick 1985). The case demonstrates the context-specific nature of expert-lay boundaries and identities and explores a range of material and linguistic resources available for negotiating them. Arguing for a view of Shaw's trajectory as simultaneously one of being a "practical man" and of becoming a naturalist, the paper explores both the permeability of social hierarchies in knowledge production and their effective role in the regulation of competency.

"But It's Just a Fish": Understanding the Challenges of Applying the 3Rs in Laboratory Aquariums in the UK.

Adopting a social science perspective and qualitative methodology on the problem of laboratory fish welfare, this paper examines some underlying social factors and drivers that influence thinking, priorities and implementation of fish welfare initiatives and the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) for fish. Drawing on original qualitative interviews with stakeholders, animal technologists and scientists who work with fish-especially zebrafish-to illustrate the case, this paper explores some key social factors influencing the take up of the 3Rs in this context. Our findings suggest the relevance of factors including ambient cultural perceptions of fish, disagreements about the evidence on fish pain and suffering, the discourse of regulators, and the experiences of scientists and animal technologists who develop and put the 3Rs into practice. The discussion is focused on the UK context, although the main themes will be pertinent around the world.