Animals used in biological research and testing have become integrated into the trajectories of modern biomedicine, generating increased expectations for and connections between human and animal health. Animal research also remains controversial and its acceptability is contingent on a complex network of relations and assurances across science and society, which are both formally constituted through law and informal or assumed. In this paper, we propose these entanglements can be studied through an approach that understands animal research as a nexus spanning the domains of science, health and animal welfare. We introduce this argument through, first, outlining some key challenges in UK debates around animal research, and second, reviewing the way nexus concepts have been used to connect issues in environmental research. Third, we explore how existing social sciences and humanities scholarship on animal research tends to focus on different aspects of the connections between scientific research, human health and animal welfare, which we suggest can be combined in a nexus approach. In the fourth section, we introduce our collaborative research on the animal research nexus, indicating how this approach can be used to study the history, governance and changing sensibilities around UK laboratory animal research. We suggest the attention to complex connections in nexus approaches can be enriched through conversations with the social sciences and medical humanities in ways that deepen appreciation of the importance of path-dependency and contingency, inclusion and exclusion in governance and the affective dimension to research. In conclusion, we reflect on the value of nexus thinking for developing research that is interdisciplinary, interactive and reflexive in understanding how accounts of the histories and current relations of animal research have significant implications for how scientific practices, policy debates and broad social contracts around animal research are being remade today.

Adopting a social science perspective and qualitative methodology on the problem of laboratory fish welfare, this paper examines some underlying social factors and drivers that influence thinking, priorities and implementation of fish welfare initiatives and the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) for fish. Drawing on original qualitative interviews with stakeholders, animal technologists and scientists who work with fish—especially zebrafish—to illustrate the case, this paper explores some key social factors influencing the take up of the 3Rs in this context. Our findings suggest the relevance of factors including ambient cultural perceptions of fish, disagreements about the evidence on fish pain and suffering, the discourse of regulators, and the experiences of scientists and animal technologists who develop and put the 3Rs into practice. The discussion is focused on the UK context, although the main themes will be pertinent around the world.

Research involving animals that occurs outside the laboratory raises an array of unique challenges. With regard to UK legislation, however, it receives only limited attention in terms of official guidelines, support, and statistics, which are unsurprisingly orientated towards the laboratory environment in which the majority of animal research takes place. In September 2019, four social scientists from the Animal Research Nexus program gathered together a group of 13 experts to discuss nonlaboratory research under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (A(SP)A) of 1986 (mirroring European Union (EU) Directive 2010/63/EU), which is the primary mechanism for regulating animal research in the UK. Such nonlaboratory research under the A(SP)A often occurs at Places Other than Licensed Establishments (POLEs). The primary objective of the workshop was to assemble a diverse group with experience across a variety of POLEs (e.g., wildlife field sites, farms, fisheries, veterinary clinics, zoos) to explore the practical, ethical, and regulatory challenges of conducting research at POLEs. While consensus was not sought, nor reached on every point of discussion, we collectively identified five key areas that we propose require further discussion and attention. These relate to: (1) support and training; (2) ethical review; (3) cultures of care, particularly in nonregulated research outside of the laboratory; (4) the setting of boundaries; and (5) statistics and transparency. The workshop generated robust discussion and thereby highlighted the value of focusing on the unique challenges posed by POLEs, and the need for further opportunities for exchanging experiences and sharing best practice relating to research projects outside of the laboratory in the UK and elsewhere.

This paper examines discourses around “volunteering” in animal research. Through a qualitative textual analysis of the scientific literature using animals in behavioral and psychological research, we demonstrate that “voluntary” and related terms are used by scientists in a variety of distinct ways, which carry a range of ethical and political connotations. While any reference to volunteering might be assumed to imply free, unconstrained, and unpaid participation in an activity, in the animal research literature the term is often used simply to signal a lack of physical restraint, even though other human-imposed constraints are at play. Though truly voluntary behavior may be impossible, we nevertheless argue that there is a case for seeing use of the language of volunteering as an ethical or political move in which scientists aim to highlight a goal of minimizing human control, promoting animal welfare, or representing their research as ethically acceptable.

Human capacity to sense and respond to the suffering of non-human animals is key to animal care and welfare. Intuitively these modes of relating seem best suited to interactions between humans and warm-blooded mammals who share human-like facial features and characteristics. Animal geographers and those working in animal welfare have noted the challenges that humans face in learning to care about fishes, and how this leads to welfare guidelines and regulations which are poorly suited to aquatic species. This paper draws on interviews with laboratory aquarists and biomedical researchers to explore how they have learnt to sense and respond to the needs of fishes in the laboratory. We offer two key observations. Firstly, despite significant bodily differences, humans find ways to empathise with fishes. Secondly, whilst observations of bodies and behaviours predominate in laboratory mammal welfare assessments, when working with fishes water quality serves as an important proxy for species health. We conclude that the laboratory aquarium signifies methodological and conceptual limits in contemporary animal geographies. We further argue that these barriers should be understood as cultural, and – as we demonstrate – that there is consequently scope and capacity to reach beyond them by engaging in amphibious ethics and speculative immersions.

Argument: During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an argument raged about the identity of a small freshwater fish: was the parr a distinct species, or merely the young of the salmon? This “Parr Controversy” concerned both fishermen and ichthyologists. A central protagonist in the controversy was a man of ambiguous social and scientific status: a gamekeeper from Scotland named John Shaw. This paper examines Shaw’s heterogeneous practices and the reception of his claims by naturalists as he struggled to find a footing on the “gradient of attributed competence” (Rudwick 1985). The case demonstrates the context-specific nature of expert-lay boundaries and identities and explores a range of material and linguistic resources available for negotiating them. Arguing for a view of Shaw’s trajectory as simultaneously one of being a “practical man” and of becoming a naturalist, the paper explores both the permeability of social hierarchies in knowledge production and their effective role in the regulation of competency.