Dissertation
Geographies of the Liminal Dolphin: toward an understanding of the contested spaces of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast
2014
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25907/00273
Abstract
Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) is a field of therapies that have been developed to enable humans with disabilities to achieve improved lives. DAT occurs in a range of places and environments, is theorised in various ways, and is both criticised and supported in a polarised discourse. Its various geographic situations and debates make a socio-spatial understanding of DAT problematic. Previous research on animal-human interactions, and in particular in the scholarship of animal geographies, explores similar challenges from the perspectives of 'the contact zone', reimagining zoos and geo-ethics, but have not explored how interspecies work in therapies can be of significant mutual benefit, and in particular in relation to DAT. This research explores the socio-spatial constructions of DAT to reveal how they affect the therapies and human-animal relations more broadly. Using a social-constructionist onto-epistemological paradigm, and drawing on nonrepresentational theory, Actor Network Theory, and Foucault-inspired analysis, three methods of analysis were used to categorise the data: a genealogy of DAT's history and development, a discourse analysis of academic and non-academic texts, and a case study of a DAT facility. Data was gathered by means of interviews, textual analysis, and personal observation. The findings showed that socio-spatial understandings of DAT are problematized by: varied degrees of proximity between humans and dolphins and the different regimes of knowledge produced by them; environments and their effects on relations between humans and dolphins; noninclusive ethical theories; and a lack of theorising about mutual effects.
Details
- Title
- Geographies of the Liminal Dolphin: toward an understanding of the contested spaces of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
- Authors
- Clark S Taylor
- Contributors
- Jennifer Carter (Supervisor)
- Awarding institution
- University of the Sunshine Coast
- Degree awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- DOI
- 10.25907/00273
- Organisation Unit
- Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; School of Social Sciences - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Law and Society; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99448957302621
- Output Type
- Dissertation