“What Have Animals to Do With Social Work?” A Sociological Reflection on Species and Social Work

The contributors to Thomas Ryan’s Animals in Social Work offer a challenge to anthropocentrism in social work theory and practice. Because this challenge resonates with the “zoological connection” that confronts anthropocentric sociology, this review article offers a sociological examination of key points raised. In focusing on conceptualizations of the human animal binary, personhood and selfhood, property, ethics, and welfare, this article concludes that nonhuman animals ought to matter to social work. Ryan is right: One day social workers will be incredulous that social work could have overlooked nonhuman animals for so long. Sociologists will be similarly incredulous about anthropocentric sociology.