Unfit Stewards: The Role of the Intensive Pet Parenting Ideology in Constructing Racialized Narratives

Abstract

Abstract Scholars have found that privileged, white individuals in integrated neighborhoods construct narratives that people of color (POC) have relationships with pets that are culturally different and morally questionable. They use these narratives to justify surveilling, punishing, and excluding their POC neighbors. How do privileged white people come up with the pet-related narratives they use as part of racialization processes? The dual purposes in this paper are to identify the constitutive elements of the intensive pet parenting ideology and show how individuals rely on this ideology to construct pet-related, racialized narratives. I extend the current discussion about the use of pet-related, racialized narratives by taking a closer look at the white-dominated veterinary profession. I conducted 44 in-depth interviews with a racially-diverse group of employed veterinarians and veterinary college students to determine if and how they rely on the intensive pet parenting ideology to explain a broad racial/ethnic process such as occupational segregation. Respondents proposed that POC cultures do not promote a self-sacrificing love for common pet species that would engender a passion for veterinary medicine within individuals of color. In this manner, they drew on the intensive pet parenting ideology to both racialize people and naturalize POC exclusion from the veterinary profession.