The Home Lives of Animal Objects: Disability Perspectives & Domestic Ecologies

This dissertation examines the capitalist objectification of animal species into knick-knacks and figurines used for decorative purposes. My main goal is to encourage humans to think more deeply about often-overlooked animal objects in our daily lives. Each chapter explores how animal objects associated with ducks, pigs, and rabbits, respectively, can highlight the norms they subtly reproduce and activate new connections between humans and animals. I approach this topic as a performance artist with a background in performance studies, which means I am always thinking about these objects in relation to my own body, considering the scripts, choreographies, and movements they inspire or perpetuate. By implementing my method of “the disability graze," I argue that disabled embodiment and non-normative attunement to aesthetics can shed necessary and exciting new light on these animal objects and allow us to tell different stories about animals and the ways they are represented and standardized in capitalist consumer cultures. Together, the chapters highlight the scholarly and public importance of tactility and perspectives from differently abled individuals in studying animal objects and multispecies relations.