Disappearing Bitches: Canine Affect and Postcolonial Bioethics

Hyaesin Yoon*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

This article engages with the animal bodies that haunt the transnational pet-cloning industry: the “used-up” surrogate-mother dogs said to be returned to dog-farms and slaughtered for human consumption in South Korea. I explore how “Western” criticisms that reduce the problem to Korea’s dog-eating culture and lack of bioethics— interlocking with nationalist and cultural relativist responses among Koreans—reiterate postcolonial relations within transnational bioethics, further pushing these animals into the shadows. I trace shame and disgust (as affective remainders of canine bodies) as a way to critically examine the bioethicalization of animal welfare as an operation of the biopolitical order of things among human and nonhuman bodies in the field of transnational biotechnology, in an effort to remind us of the canine others within us.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)351-371
Number of pages21
JournalConfigurations: A Journal of Literature, Science and Technology
Volume24
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

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