Focussing on the concepts of 'animal work' and 'animal labour', this project investigates how donkeys and their hybrids contribute to and operate within contemporary industrial and urban activity – reflecting on their lived experience as they adapt to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Historically, donkeys have (through their labour) facilitated the development of early pastoral societies, cities and, later, entire empires. However, the contemporary situation is unclear. Initial literature searches and internal knowledge at TDS indicates that donkeys are involved in a wide range of industries. However, currently there is no comprehensive overview of the range of industries that donkeys are currently contributing to and labouring within, nor are there detailed accounts of how certain industries are changing and presenting novel risks and working conditions, and what this means for human-equid relations, welfare and wellbeing. This project explores the critical role of donkeys in local and regional industries, identifying gaps where new insights and approaches are needed to meet the welfare and wellbeing requirements of donkeys in a rapidly changing world.
This project deploys a range of methods to illicit information and build a comprehensive picture of the different factors that shape, drive and characterise equid-supported industries globally. These include:
1. Desk-based review of existing literature on the topic;
2. A survey (questionnaire) targeted at relevant INGOs, local/regional partners, policy-makers and academic networks to illicit further information on the range of industries that donkeys and their hybrids are currently involved in;
3. Key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders identified through the questionnaire (above) to explore industry sites in more detail, including working conditions, welfare challenges, socio-political and economic dynamics;
4. Utilise existing empirical material, collaborating with researchers who have previously investigated equid-supported industry sites;
5. Where critical gaps remain, identify sites for investigation (fieldwork). This will be particularly important if we are to gain in-depth insights into working conditions, human-equid relations and equid experiences (a specific methodology would be developed in this case, likely combining welfare assessments, QBA and ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews, observations and photo/video data).
(i) Provide a comprehensive overview of the range of industries that donkeys and their hybrids are currently involved in, providing information on some of the questions outlined in the Introduction/Background (above). What does this tell us about the critical role of equids in local and regional economies?
(ii) Investigate the industries that donkeys and their hybrids are working within, focussing on the spaces and conditions that donkeys are now expected to navigate and adapt to (identifying novel case studies). What are the implications for welfare and wellbeing? What are the dynamics between humans and equids and how do they reflect the challenges of modern industrial workplaces? What are the pressures from wider societal/ political/ environmental influences?
(iii) Build interdisciplinary collaboration and the cross-fertilisation of ideas between welfare science, animal labour scholarship, and those advocating for working equids. Equid-supported industries comprise a complex set of human-nonhuman relations and processes within specific socio-political and economic contexts and so this approach will be key.
(iv) Explore policy implications (in terms of equids being recognised as workers and the expansion of the concept of ‘decent work’ to acknowledge the role and contribution of nonhuman animals) and implications in terms of international partnerships and collaborations with non-equine stakeholders (acknowledging the multiple social, political and economic factors at play in these complex settings).