Hahaha I suspected that might be the case. All the better for my research though! May I ask what zoo you own and what you are doing for inclusivity?
Interesting. If this is Parsons in NYC you are attending I am surprised. There are almost no actual zoo designers living here in NYC. The ones I know here are not, to my knowledge, teaching at Parsons.
No, you may not (remember: burned bridge). And I couldn't even employ you, as according to your paper, that would contribute to the (historical) exploitation of the worker. As for "inclusivity": not what you seem to understand as such.
Yeah, I lucked out. One of the two is a professor at Trinity University, which I had before I transferred to Parsons. The other is a zoo and aquarium lighting designer that just did work on Houston's Pantanal exhibit. lol, I figured as much...
Put it this way; it would be the work of literally 5 minutes or less to find the copious threads discussing the development, opening and ongoing news from his zoo and it would perhaps be best for you to look into the matter yourself rather than asking for all the answers. So not actually a professor, given you haven't cited where they teach?
@AKhan one thing that I wanted to ask you before about your paper is what you meant in the sense of the identity of the python. Could you explain what you were trying to convey with that word ?
Thank you for steering the conversation back to the paper itself. I was hoping to convey the identity of Mango as an individual. She is very different from my last ball python in terms of temperament, eating habits, displayed preferences, fear response, etc., despite being raised and treated in many of the same ways. I see individuality as the driver of identity. I think it is generally accepted that animals have identities, though "souls" would be an entirely different discussion. Do you have a suggestion for better terminology?
I think that given the title of the paper the word identity really should be avoided because it is too anthropocentric in some ways and carries a lot of very political connotations / baggage as in identity politics and that kind of thing. I think probably the best word to use in place of it would be "temperament" or "disposition" of the python which I think are less loaded words and more neutral.
@Onychorhynchus coronatus Thank you! This is helpful for reframing my thinking and will be incorporated into the next draft.
Again, I have to say @AKhan in terms of constructive criticism that I think that a lot of the wokeisms in the paper could generally be avoided and that the paper could do with some quite extensive re-thinking and restructuring. I think that a lot of areas where you feel you would like to see improvements being made in terms of inclusivity in zoos are not really big issues and generally are common sense and already covered by a lot of these institutions. I think that labour related issues such as paying fair wages in zoos for zoo workers would be one of the points that I feel is more pertinent as this is a big problem in the industry and is likely to get worse under the current economic climate. I think that it is fair enough stating that the history of zoos is rooted in colonialism but I don't think zoos currently embody this or pursue this in "neocolonialist" terms so I would be careful with branding them as such as they are not. As @Zooplantman has pointed out the whole "decolonisation" discussion is already a dominant conversation at the moment in institutions. Moreover, I would actually argue that many zoos and museums across the world are actually bending over backwards already to try to change this "colonialist" perception (often unnecessarily and in some cases quite shamefully IMO). I think if we are going to talk about neocolonialism then zoos and museums may be an "easy target" but they are absolutely the wrong target. The right targets are the multinational corporations and contrary to popular opinion these are not all European or American / Canadian / Australian but also Chinese, Japanese, Nigerian, Brazilian and Indian too.
Well, not not exactly. I meant that there are very few zoo designers in NYC and the ones I know are not teaching there. Then I remembered the designers at WCS (I tend to think first of the zoo design firms rather than in-house designers) In any case AKhan stated one instructor is an academic (so we don't know what that person's experience has been) and the other is a lighting designer who has worked on zoo projects.
You have been on this site far longer than I have and you didn’t even come across any of Batto’s threads? Yikes
