Home is Where the Pet is: A View of the American Family through the Study of Pets in American Culture
Date
2012
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Haverford College. Department of Anthropology
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Abstract
This paper is a brief representation of pets in American culture. Through fieldwork involving observation and participation at an animal shelter in Radnor, Pennsylvania and interviews with middle class Americans I have been able to present the views that middle class Americans have of pets, as well as how pets are treated by middle class Americans. My work has focused on ideas of family and hierarchy to determine how pets are viewed and understood by middle class Americans. I am interested if whether the way middle class Americans view pets as family and the way middle class Americans treat pets are or are not contradictory and whether or not pets fit the cultural definition of family. These ideas provide an exploration of pets and the family, and in turn illuminate something greater about the American family and its structure.