Dignity: A Radical Respecification

It is possible (and we think desirable) to consider another conceptualisation of workplace dignity—as something which need not be exclusively human. Thus, rather than pursuing the argument that dignity and rights extend from humans to other creatures, we draw theoretical strength from posthuman positions (Haraway 1989, 2008; Braidotti 2006) to reinforce and extend a well-established poststructuralist standpoint that humans and non-humans are actors in heterogeneous social networks, all the time being open to the fact that embedded within these networks are important questions of power and choice which have relevance to the ways we value animals as actors, workers, heroes, vermin, food or otherwise.

In seeking to account for the often unequal (and even multi-directional) power in interspecies relationships, being an actor need not rely upon cognition or consciousness in a narrow, human sense. We therefore recognise and celebrate different repertoires of ‘organizational being’ expressed in a variety of species, rather than seeking to ignore or downplay them on philosophical grounds. In discussions of marginal dignity, the concept is already on unsteady footing where it relies upon a traditional paradigm of an essentialist hierarchy of worth. Cochrane (2010) has argued that the concept of dignity itself holds no value for discussions of ethics, yet this argument rests on the critique of superficial behavioural definitions of the concept as an etiquette of respect, as well as challenges towards essentialist criteria. If we return to Aristotle’s or Kant’s original concerns regarding the actualisation of potential capacities and apply a posthuman lens, we may instead perceive dignity as an emergent feature of relations rather than a hierarchical position or non-relational ‘innate’ value. We contend that Cochrane’s argument, applicable to human and nonhumans alike, is useful in exposing that the contemporary paradigm of dignity originates in a political concept and does not describe a natural state.

We have highlighted that both a traditional and contemporary conception of dignity can be destabilised by application of various challenges and we firmly advocate their reappraisal. Traditional taxonomies and contemporary notions of capacity-based membership offer a limited picture of dignity that includes all members of the human species and excludes ‘others’ who occupy the margins. The problem with excluding animals is that we either presume they lack the innate transcendant worth of humans, or that they lack the full capacities for dignity or flourishing through work. Yet, these arguments remain mired in essentialism. Not only can many nonhuman animals feature in human relations, they make up significant and substantial parts of certain organizational networks, through purposive, transformative, and affective action. While these nonhuman animals may be exceptional actors in the network, such as guide dogs or family pets, they also may feature as central actors in the production of a product or conveying symbolic meaning. Importantly, it is down to us—as lingual humans—to recognise and articulate this.

Critiques of organizational relations have conventionally located dignity in the historically humanist concerns of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, in a mode that justifies interest in dignity for organizational scholars. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made here that the critique of dignity occurs naturally inside organizations as a response to inherently or incidentally challenging conditions. In such circumstances, it is often the disadvantaged group who identifies dignity challenges, through explicit calls to account (such as individual or collective workplace resistance) (see Hodson 2001). We can also identify many activities within organization where, in conjunction with the pursuit of everyday organizational goals, there is a significant cultural problematization of the worth of actors in the network (Ackroyd and Crowdy 1990; Hamilton 2007). Conventionally, this may apply to human workers’ structures of performance evaluation and reward. Yet, in many organizations the function of nonhuman animals is—or can be—complicated by thinking in terms of their worth.

By applying a concept of dignity as an outcome of organizational relations, we can look at both human and nonhuman questions of dignity as a matter of success in the translation of dignity through a heterogeneous network of actors. We can identify how nonhuman animals challenge questions of dignity through their actions and, in doing so, they may symbolically defy expected notions of the worth of human beings; for example, in their transition from living animal to meat product. Nonhuman animals may resist enrollment in projects of worth promoted by human actors, as in the case of Callon’s scallops, and in so doing come to present a call to account for values and priorities. This is not to suggest that nonhuman animals only present challenges to anthropocentric notions of worth. As actors in networks they also promote enrollment and mobilisation of allies in projects to dignify nonhuman and human animals alike.

We mentioned earlier the routine and purposeful actions of Herdwick sheep, a domesticated breed native to the uplands of the Lake District, as enmeshed in a network of actors (including a multiplicity of human organizations). We return briefly to this example here to illuminate how the dialectical relationship between animal and shepherd, herd and heft is extended in a complex network currently mobilising many actors including environmentalists, cameras, farmers, politicians, fences, Olympic medallists, slaughterhouse workers, food connoisseurs, academics, and poets in a project of redefining the animal and its associated meat product. It is a part of the work of these heterogeneous networks to dignify the Herdwick breed (and by association the many human workers and organizations surrounding it) by establishing a recognised and protected relationship between animals and humans through regulation of the meat production process. This relies upon the learned behaviour of the sheep as much as it rests upon their capacity for transformative action on the farmer and upon the other actors within the network. Without the breed’s entrancing effect on tourists, conservationists, would-be farmers, and European bureaucratic officials, it is warned that the occupation of farming in these human communities will become economically and socially worthless, despite the deeply passionate feeling many upland farmers hold about the connection between their work and tradition, the breed and the landscape. Within such projects, both human and nonhuman dignity is at stake.

Identities and worth are both outcomes of network relations. In this sense, dignity can be understood as an emergent judgement of worth rather than a political advocacy for that worth to be recognised. While the in-depth mechanics of such relations are beyond the scope of this chapter, such a perspective is as inclusive of problematic animal identities as it is of marginal human identities. Such a position is both radical and controversial, because it challenges the status of the terminology of ‘dignity’ as a signifier of a privileged ontological status justly applied to a species or an individual. In doing so, such a position can be read as attacking political arguments which attempt to defend the moral worth of vulnerable human and nonhuman actors. This is not our aim here. Debates around animal ethics continue to perpetuate species divisions and to promote an approach to dignity focusing primarily on environmental factors of captivity compared to an idealised ‘natural’ environment. While we agree that certain environmental conditions are detrimental to animals, human and nonhuman alike, we contend that the concerns of captive and productive animals lie in their disempowered network relationships.

The recognition of the potential of animals to suffer highlights the way in which these individuals can demonstrably present a call to account, although these calls, as with those of human animals, can be promoted or side-lined through the mobilisation of allies within a network. The animal rights movement may well be viewed as one such network, but it remains a network dominated by human actors. In moral arguments such as Anderson (2004) promoting ‘wild dignity’, it is important to realise that an idealised picture of the so-called wild animal is one outside of, or very loosely connected to, human networks.