Paper short abstract:

I argue that a key component for shaping and managing the normativities of animal research are, what I call, ‘technologies of (ef)facement’: tools, rituals, techniques or architectures whose engagement results in a loss of face (and often in the creation of a new one).

Paper long abstract:

I argue that knowing through animal research is inextricably tied up with the possibility of knowing animals through their 'face': understood as the surfaces facing us - faces and bodies (Morris 2007). Experimental design in animal studies negotiates between conceiving of the animals involved as "faceless", laboratory equipment, bought, quality checked and discarded once used, and as other animals that humans "face", whose behaviours, pains and bodies animal researchers can and should relate to their own. I argue that a key component shaping and managing the normativities of animal research are 'technologies of (ef)facement'. These are tools, rituals, techniques or architectures whose engagement results in a loss of face (and often in the creation of a new one): a transformation of physical appearance, social role or habitus that comes with a change in one´s perceived ethical standing or moral responsibilities. I propose that these performative strategies are key enablers for coming to be a researcher seeing an animal as what Michael Lynch calls an "analytic" object (Lynch 1988). However these strategies are not absolute. The categorical and felt alignment between experimental organisms and humans as animals with faces will by default raise ethical questions regarding our responsibilities to both animals and humans involved in animal research.

Lynch, M. (1988), "Sacrifice and the transformation of the animal body into a scientific object: Laboratory culture and ritual practice in the neurosciences" Social Studies of Science, 18(2), 265-289

Morris, D. (2007), "Faces and the Invisible of the Visible: Toward an Animal Ontology" PhaenEx 2, no. 2: 124-169