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Historisk tidskrift 132:3 • 2012

Innehåll (Contents) 2012:3

Uppsatser (Articles)

Offer, Fjende, Frænde, Føde. Dyrs roller i Danmark i 1800-tallets slutning

Anne Katrine Gjerløff

 

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Summary

Friend, foe, or foodstuff? The roles of animals in Denmark in the late 19th century

The history of animals is not so much about animals, but is rather a history of humans. In recent decades several studies of the history of animals have revealed close connections between the classification, discourse and uses of animals and social and cultural history. To gain further insight into human history through the study of human-animal relations, a close consideration of categorizations of animals is needed. Based on a larger research project on animal rights and roles in Denmark 1850–1920, the article offers an introduction to the field of the history of animals and presents the many different roles played by cows, birds and dogs in late 19th-century Denmark. The analysis considers not only the symbolic representations of animals but also their material and bodily presence in specific historic contexts. One of the main conclusions is that no immediate link exists between the scientific classification of animals and their cultural and social identity and utility, and that one and the same group of animals can play very diverse and apparently conflicting roles at the same time. As such the history of animals contributes to further analysis of hierarchies and categories of humans, institutions, traditions and trades in cultural and social history.

Keywords

History of animals, 19th century Denmark, cultural history, classifications, categories