Killing for a living: A research agenda on government’s role in animal care and control

This essay focuses on the public servants who animate biopolitics and the publicness of animal care and control through the example of workers whose jobs involve killing animals in government shelters. From the perspective of government, stray domestic animals are mostly nuisances that are killed, so killing becomes someone’s job. Government-operated and government-funded shelters are less able to claim “no-kill” status compared to private or nonprofit shelters, and therefore workers in government shelters are more likely to be involved in euthanasia than those in nonprofit shelters. The ubiquity of death, including participating in decisions about which animals to kill, represents the most stress-inducing work in animal shelters, according to research. Governing life—biopolitics—is highly public. Private-sector, for-profit entities might do this work, but only according to government regulations. More often, the work is left to government and government workers. For certain services, government is the provider of last or only resort. Understanding the implications of this role on the workers who fulfill it would make an important contribution to the study of government organizations.