"Viewing" the Body: Toward a Discourse of Rabbit Death

Author: Smith, Julie Ann

Source: World Views: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, Volume 9, Number 2, 2005 , pp. 184-202(19)

Publisher: BRILL

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Abstract:

Traditional academic discourse on animal death denies non-human animals an understanding of death based on an inability to have a "concept" of death. A different view has emerged within a rabbit rescue organization to which I belong called the House Rabbit Society. HRS members live closely with rabbits inside their homes and as a matter of practice place the body of a deceased rabbit with his or her surviving partner or group for "viewing." Observing rabbits in this context, HRS members grant to them the capacity to understand that a partner has undergone a permanent and catastrophic change. This conclusion is best understood within a larger discourse of rabbits shaped by three modes of viewing rabbits while they are alive: a rationalist approach, an emotionally engaged view, and an active suspension of interpretation.

Keywords: RABBIT; CONCEPT OF DEATH; HOUSE RABBIT SOCIETY

Document Type: Regular paper

DOI: 10.1163/1568535054615376

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