A Mouse in a Cage
Rethinking Humanitarianism and the Rights of Lab Animals
Published on 24. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
277 pages
978-1-4798-3348-1 (ISBN)
Description
Questions the treatment of laboratory animals in biomedical research
Laboratory animals are often used to develop medical treatments: vaccines, antibiotics, and organ transplants have all relied upon animal testing to ensure safety and success for human benefit. Yet the relationship between the scientific community's dependence on laboratory animals and the recognition of the need to treat these animals with respect and compassion has given rise to a profound tension.
As animals are increasingly understood to have rights and autonomy, Carrie Friese posits that, while care and compassion for a distant other who suffers are central to humanitarianism, the idea of a distant other itself, which has shaped work with laboratory animals both historically and today, has enacted forms of highly problematic paternalism, creating a double bind. Focusing on the lives of laboratory mice and rats in the United Kingdom, and on the people who take care of, and often kill, these animals, Friese gives the name of "more-than-human humanitarianism" to contradictory practices of suffering and compassion, killing and sacrifice, and compassion and consent that she witnessed in a variety of animal facilities and laboratories.
Friese proposes a new approach to the treatment of laboratory animals that recognizes the interconnectedness of all species and how human actions impact the welfare of other species and the planet as a whole. A Mouse in a Cage is an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about the ethical treatment of animals.
Laboratory animals are often used to develop medical treatments: vaccines, antibiotics, and organ transplants have all relied upon animal testing to ensure safety and success for human benefit. Yet the relationship between the scientific community's dependence on laboratory animals and the recognition of the need to treat these animals with respect and compassion has given rise to a profound tension.
As animals are increasingly understood to have rights and autonomy, Carrie Friese posits that, while care and compassion for a distant other who suffers are central to humanitarianism, the idea of a distant other itself, which has shaped work with laboratory animals both historically and today, has enacted forms of highly problematic paternalism, creating a double bind. Focusing on the lives of laboratory mice and rats in the United Kingdom, and on the people who take care of, and often kill, these animals, Friese gives the name of "more-than-human humanitarianism" to contradictory practices of suffering and compassion, killing and sacrifice, and compassion and consent that she witnessed in a variety of animal facilities and laboratories.
Friese proposes a new approach to the treatment of laboratory animals that recognizes the interconnectedness of all species and how human actions impact the welfare of other species and the planet as a whole. A Mouse in a Cage is an essential contribution to the ongoing conversation about the ethical treatment of animals.
Reviews / Votes
"A Mouse in a Cage takes us into the practices and meanings of nonhuman humanitarianism, not as an abstract concept, but as existentially lived in animal technicians' relationships with animals, colleagues, the visiting sociologist, and the world. By innovatively juxtaposing rich ethnography and fiction, Carrie Friese complicates and deepens our understanding of what it means and takes to care in hierarchical relationships. From the very first pages, we want to stay in her universe and view the world through her careful descriptions and intriguing analytical takes. A Mouse in a Cage crafts new language for the complexity of interspecies relations and care." - Mette Nordahl Svendsen, author of Near Human: Border Zones of Species, Life, and Belonging"In this study from a renowned scholar of animals in science, Carrie Friese offers astute and imaginative observations regarding the limitations and possibilities of care in UK laboratories, wherein a 'more-than-human humanitarianism' analytical anchor advances refreshing challenges to human-centered understandings of interspecies responsibility. Friese's noteworthy decision to interweave ethnographic knowledge with works of fiction opens up new terrain for troubling the boundaries of gender, race, and class in science.. This book is a must read for any scholar interested in the quotidian complexities of laboratory worlds." - Lesley A. Sharp, author of Animal Ethos: The Morality of Human-Animal Encounters in Experimental Lab Science
"This ground-breaking book makes visible how mice bred, modified, nurtured and killed for biomedical research have become central actors in progressing human health and society. By situating thick description of actual mouse lives alongside the people involved in the care and death of these animals, the book's major contribution is to unpick the political, economic, scientific, ethical, moral and social entanglements underpinning the dependence of science on backgrounding the animals that make animal models possible. Specifically, Friese brilliantly reveals how humanitarian ethics had to change and develop for the creation and use of these 'lab' animals to become possible at the international scale it is today. This work is huge in scope and unique - no other study has helped us see so clearly all that we owe to - and how much we depend upon and even demand of - these mice. A Mouse in a Cage is a tour de force." - Joanna Latimer, co-editor of Intimate Entanglements
"Friese has made a novel and thought-provoking contribution to the highly controversial subject of the use of animals in scientific research. Instead of re-treading the usual path of debating the rights and wrongs of animal research in of itself, Friese has undertaken many hours of interviews with researchers and animal caregivers and presents a new narrative based on the experiences of those who are directly involved in the care and use of research animals. Friese interweaves these interviews with reflections on themes in fiction that echo the ethical and emotional challenges that are faced by those who care for animals in a context that is seen by some to be indefensible. The result is remarkable, making this the most engaging book on this issue I have read for many years." - Elliot Lilley, Programme Manager at National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
337 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-3348-1 (9781479833481)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2025
NYU Press
€0.00
Available for download
Person
Carrie Friese is Associate Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the author of Cloning Wild Life: Zoos, Captivity, and the Future of Endangered Animals.