The greyhound: an ethnography of stories and symbols

Greyhounds have long held a public position as a dog used for racing in Australia. Introduced as part of the British invasion and early colonisation of the country, a distinct ‘greyhound racing community’ was formed around these dogs and their sport. This community and the sport of greyhound racing have been subject to recent scrutiny due to concerns about animal welfare, seeing the formation of a parallel greyhound community: the ‘greyhound rescue community’. Criticism of greyhound racing came to a high in 2015 following the public exposure of animal cruelty within the New South Wales (NSW) racing industry. The exposure further demarcated the overarching ‘greyhound community’ as a contested domain split between those involved in racing and rescue. In this thesis, I explore the tension between racing and rescue, and seek to advance a multispecies understanding of how divergent relationships and perceptions of greyhounds contribute to this contested domain. Through 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I have sought to gather the stories of greyhounds. Drawing on an eco-feminist framework and multispecies methodologies, I seek to better understand how these stories are constructed and how the greyhound breed and individual greyhounds form part of and shape the communities of greyhound racing and rescue. I explore how various stakeholders perceive and relate to the dogs, as well as one another, and question the relationships that humans establish with greyhounds and how greyhounds are constructed within the two communities. The thesis analyses the relationship between the communities of racing and rescue, and interrogates the associated tensions and boundaries for inclusion and exclusion. The thesis offers an analysis of the intimate zones of greyhound relations, focusing specifically on the stories and symbols that create the animal-human relationships on both sides of the greyhound community. I argue that for those invested in greyhounds—regardless if involved in racing or rescue—individual dogs represent more than what they are; they are representative of a symbol, which is made up of stories that circulate within and across the greyhound community. How these stories are heard/shared is dependent upon the positioning of the listener/story-teller. These divergent symbol interpretations and ways of story sharing/listening contribute to the contention amongst a group of people who all attest to love the same subject: greyhounds. By deepening greyhound-human knowledges, I seek to ascertain how to navigate the ethical quandaries that exist within greyhound worlds and more thoroughly consider what it means to ethically live alongside greyhounds.