Objects: A Planet of Things

Objects are unmanageable, and they are everywhere. In this chapter, I suggest how objects have been, and might be, useful to those working at the intersections of the health and environmental humanities. As scholars have suggested, our sickening planet has been extensively mined for resources, and objects expose structures of power and hegemony. Bringing together different approaches – from the health humanities and disability studies to environmental history and the environmental humanities – I sketch out a textual approach to the objectification of animals. Using taxidermy production in Britain and the British Empire as my primary case study, I demonstrate the varied ways in which health and environment were bound within animal specimens. I focus, in particular, on the fluidity of taxidermy objects, with their mixing of creaturely and cultural, prosthetic, and “natural”. Then, I discuss what questions we might ask of the objects themselves and outline how a practice-based approach can deepen our understanding of objectification practices.