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Volunteers' Power and Resistance in the Struggle for Shelter Animal Survival
Author(s) -
Guenther Katja M.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
sociological forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1573-7861
pISSN - 0884-8971
DOI - 10.1111/socf.12376
Subject(s) - craft , resistance (ecology) , power (physics) , construct (python library) , sociology , social capital , criminology , work (physics) , public relations , political science , social science , biology , geography , mechanical engineering , ecology , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , computer science , engineering , programming language
This article presents an analysis of how volunteers use different forms of capital to resist the practices and discourses of the organization for which they volunteer. Volunteers at a large public animal shelter do not share the shelter's institutionally held belief that shelter death is an inevitable result of homelessness among companion animals; to reduce shelter death, they craft challenges to the shelter practice of putting dogs down and work to construct shelter death as an avoidable and problematic outcome. Their repertoire of resistance includes educational, health‐based, relational, moral, reputational, and legal strategies. The findings illuminate that volunteers’ social location outside of the shelter provides them with capital to engage in resistance within the shelter.