The Changing Place of Animals in Post-Franco Spain with particular reference to Bullfighting, Popular Festivities, and Pet-keeping.
This is a thesis about the changing place of animals in post-Franco Spain, with particular reference to bullfighting, popular festivities, and pet-keeping. The thesis argues that since the ‘transition’ to democracy (1975-1982), which made Spain one of the most liberal social-democratic states in Europe, there have been several notable developments in human-animal relations. In some important respects, Spain has begun to shed its unenviable reputation for cruelty towards animals. Three important changes have occurred. First, bullfighting (corridas) has been banned in the Canary Islands (1991) and in Catalonia (2010). In addition, numerous municipalities have declared themselves against it. Second, although animals are still widely ‘abused’ and killed (often illegally) in local festivities, many have gradually ceased to use live animals, substituting either dead ones or effigies, and those that continue to use animals are subject to increasing legal restrictions. Third, one of the most conspicuous changes has been the growth in popularity of urban pet-keeping, together with the huge expansion of the market for foods, accessories and services - from healthy diets to cemeteries. The thesis shows that the character of these changing human-animal relations, and the resistance they encounter, can only be properly understood within the context of Spain’s historical trajectory since the 1970s. Aside from the transition to democracy, among the more important influences are the continual urbanising/modernising processes; entry into the EU and the move towards ‘Europeanism’; the rule of democratic law (after forty years of Francoism); the rise of an effective animal movement; the public rejection of political and personal violence; ongoing and vigorous debates about local, regional and national ‘identities’, and the popular desire to see Spain as ‘normal’ (civilised) rather than ‘different’ (primitive).
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