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Micro-Landscapes of the Anthropocene

Talk is Cheep

Symbolification is defined here as “the process by which historical literary interpretation reduces an otherwise multifaceted ‘subject’ into an ‘object’, by way of using it only to signify something else”. The example of a dove is used — “the symbolification of the dove: the dove is equated with peace symbolically, and thus we have ‘symbolified’ it. It has been reduced to a sort of icon that signifies something it is not, therefore objectifying the creature and detracting from its subjective existence.”

If I understand it correctly, I find the representation of chickens both in slang terminology and in literature to be an example of symbolification. For example, “don’t be chicken”.

To call someone chicken is to insinuate or mock their cowardice or timidity. It also denotes “[the chicken’s insistence] on petty details of duty or discipline”. The intent is to convince/ force/ coerce someone to complete a dare or engage in risk-taking behaviours in order to avoid the label ‘chicken’.
Another example of symbolification is the phrase ‘to run around like a headless chook’. This idiom means to carry on in an uncontrolled, disorganised manner; running around without direction, in a panic, not calmly or logically. Moreover, it is a reminder of their title as dumb animals that are easily herded/ trapped.

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There are an estimated 23 billion chickens on earth at any given time, “three times the biomass of all the wild birds combined”.
The demand for chicken products (meat and eggs) has increased with the growth in population. Some methods of chicken farming are distressing; the lifespan only “five to seven weeks from hatching to slaughter”.

The evolution of chickens is interesting in so far as their DNA can be traced to dinosaurs before being domesticated approximately 6000 years ago. Even now chickens are becoming more prevalent as household pets in metropolitan areas. Here we can see evidence of their urbanisation as they are born directly into 'captivity'.

Chickens have been found to have the closest DNA out of 21 modern species of animals to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is not surprising if you’ve seen them walk.

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Evidence of the Anthropocene

Chicken bones (fossils) may provide the evidence needed to prove the Earth has transitioned into a new ecological epoch, the Anthropocene.

The broiler chicken as a signal of a human reconfigured biosphere

'It Could Be the Age of the Chicken, Geologically' — New York Times article

"New morphospecies"

'How the domestic chicken rose to define the Anthropocene' — The Guardian article

Australian Law and The Status of Animals
It is probably amazing for most people to learn that not all states in Australia recognise that animals have feelings. For anyone who cares about animals it is pretty clear just from personal observation that they do, as the ACT only recently recognised by law in 2019. For caring pet owners, we know when our animals are sad, excited or happy. We can read the different expressions of dogs and cats and the different states of their body language. Why then is the law so far behind what I am sure the general population would consider an ethical stance?

Here I think the term Capitalocene becomes useful as it draws attention to how operations of the state enable corporations to exploit animals in highly systemised ways – ways that are likely not approved of by the general population, I would imagine. For this law that recognises how animals have feelings only applies to pets. Animals that are not permitted into our homes and beds are therefore outside the protection of the law. As the article I linked to states, this law is also largely symbolic and lacks practical application for moderating human’s treatment of animals. In this way, the law is there to appease the minds of pet owners – to placate the general voting population and yet permit the practices of big business. The law therefore does not really care about the welfare of animals but about profit and power, which does not reflect the values of the general population.

Terms like ‘Capitalocene’, created by Jason W. Moore, therefore reveal the predominant source of violence towards animals and undermine the view that humans are simply at odds with ‘nature’. A large portion of humans do want to have loving and symbiotic relationships with animals – it is predominantly rather the corporate world, as enabled by the state, that seeks to exploit them.

Scholarly Article Link: 'If Schrödinger's cat miaows in the suburbs, will anyone hear?',

This article examines how the law is inherently violent to what is feral - feral cats in particular - and provides suggestions for ways that the law can become-animal, as Delueze and Guattari would put it; ways that the law itself can sonderweave.

By Claire - z3393668.
Talk is Cheep
Symbolification is defined here as “the process by which historical literary interpretation reduces an otherwise multifaceted ‘subject’ into an ‘object’, by way of using it only to signify something else”. The example of a dove is used — “the symbolification of the dove: the dove is equated with peace symbolically, and thus we have ‘symbolified’ it. It has been reduced to a sort of icon that signifies something it is not, therefore objectifying the creature and detracting from its subjective existence.”

If I understand it correctly, I find the representation of chickens both in slang terminology and in literature to be an example of symbolification. For example, “don’t be chicken”.

To call someone chicken is to insinuate or mock their cowardice or timidity. It also denotes “[the chicken’s insistence] on petty details of duty or discipline”. The intent is to convince/ force/ coerce someone to complete a dare or engage in risk-taking behaviours in order to avoid the label ‘chicken’.
Another example of symbolification is the phrase ‘to run around like a headless chook’. This idiom means to carry on in an uncontrolled, disorganised manner; running around without direction, in a panic, not calmly or logically. Moreover, it is a reminder of their title as dumb animals that are easily herded/ trapped.

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Chicken For Life