Session: 5c
Day: Thursday 16 April
Time: 11.30–13.00
Room: JK2–3 1.17
Chair: Celandine Fleur Seuren
Clayton G. Beasley (Duke University), “Elephant Agency and the Politics of Captivity: Rethinking Zoos as Heterotopias of Resistance”
Abstract: Zoological gardens function as sites of heterotopias, spaces where human–animal relationships are structured through built environments that mediate control and representation. Architectural design within these spaces reinforces hierarchies of confinement, shaping both human perceptions of nature and the lived experiences of nonhuman species. This presentation examines Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) as a critical case through which to explore the tension between human-imposed structures and nonhuman autonomy.
Although zoos are frequently framed as institutions of conservation and education, their spatial logic also operates as technologies of surveillance that discipline both human visitors and captive elephants. Yet elephants often respond in ways that exceed or subvert these boundaries: through escape attempts, collective refusals, or subtle embodied resistances such as stereotypical pacing and non-compliance. Read as forms of agency, these gestures destabilize anthropocentric narratives that position elephants solely as objects of study or spectacle.
Drawing on ecocriticism, animal studies, and posthumanist thought, alongside welfare reports, ethnographic accounts, and cultural representations, this study reimagines the zoo not as a neutral site of conservation, but as a contested space of interspecies negotiation. Asian elephants, long entangled in colonial histories of capture, labor, and display, become figures through which to rethink the politics of captivity in the Anthropocene.
Ultimately, this presentation argues that elephant agency within enclosures reveals both the persistence of hierarchical human–animal relations and the potential for alternative multispecies futures. By situating the zoo as a heterotopia of resistance, it contends that recognizing elephants as political subjects opens pathways toward more ethical and convivial forms of coexistence grounded in care, justice, and interspecies solidarity.
Bio: Clayton Beasley is a first-year PhD student in Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. His research explores the visual and architectural dimensions of human–animal relations in sites of captivity, focusing on the history and global development of zoological gardens. He examines how enclosures mediate perception, power, and multispecies encounters, while also engaging with animal histories to consider how captivity shapes the visibility, meaning, and continuity of nonhuman life.
Janine Aloe (University of Stockholm), “‘Naughty Bears’ and ‘Freedom Monkeys’ – Media Discourse of Escape and More-than-Human Resistance”
Abstract: Mainstream media typically frames biodiversity loss through crisis and catastrophe, positioning nonhuman life as passive victim and human society as sole agent of either rescue or ruin. Yet recent shifts in cultural and ecological discourse complicate these portrayals of extinction. This paper examines how The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal report on extinction, endangerment, and animal “escapes”, tracing the ideological undercurrents of anthropocentrism, commodification, and emerging imaginaries of nonhuman agency.
Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies and ecolinguistics, I explore how occasional discursive ruptures – animals “returning” in unexpected places, or charismatic runaways such as “naughty” honey-loving bears, fugitive cows, and “freedom monkeys” – point toward forms of more-than-human resistance. While wordplay and humor often trivialize these events, I examine whether such stories nonetheless destabilize the human/nature binary by momentarily foregrounding animal autonomy and multispecies entanglement.
These narrative shifts resonate with broader extinction studies and environmental humanities frameworks that critique the “world without us” trope and instead seek to imagine multispecies survivance and resistance (Rose et al. 2017; Heise 2016), inviting imaginaries of survivance, resilience, and rebellion. I argue that while dominant media still reinforces human exceptionalism, there are growing cracks where more-than-human agency and multispecies entanglements surface. These include the valorization of “resilient” species, critiques of anthropogenic erasure, and reframings of extinction as political rather than natural.
In the context of this conference’s call to rethink nonhuman resistance and multispecies (in)justice, this paper contributes to a media-centered understanding of how cultural imaginaries of extinction intersect with narratives of rebellion and resilience. It discusses whether media can move beyond mourning and management to narrate ecological solidarity and resistance without reinscribing human exceptionalism.
Bio: Janine Aloe is a DAAD lecturer in German at Stockholm University and a PhD student in English Studies at Tartu University.
Mary Shannon Johnstone (Meredith College), “Incarceration and Resistance: An Ethics of Sight within Zoo Animal Photography”
Abstract: What does it mean to have an ‘ethics of sight’ (Gruen, 2014), and how might that help improve human-animal relationships? Using a critical animal studies lens, this presentation will examine a series of artistically altered photographs of zoo animals (“Roadside Zoo: Captive Glow” Johnstone, 2025) and discuss how animal incarceration and animal resistance are visible within the same image. Using Lori Gruen’s notion of an ethics of sight, this presentation examines an alternative way of “seeing” photographs of animals in captivity, and explores how humans might engage in a form of ethical looking by considering what is going on both in and outside of the frame. Through this analysis, I build a case for how an ethics of sight might bring us closer to a more peaceful relationship with other animals.
Bio: Mary Shannon Johnstone is a photographic artist who explores themes of absence and presence within human-animal relationships. Johnstone holds a PhD in Human-Animal Studies from New Zealand’s University of Canterbury (2025), an MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology (2001) and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1996). Johnstone is an Associate with the New Zealand Centre for Human-Animal Studies, a Fellow with the Oxford Centre of Animal Ethics in the UK, and a We Animals Media photography contributor. She is a tenured Professor in the art department at Meredith College in Raleigh, NC where she has taught full time since 2002.