Moral Panic over Fake Service Animals

John Sorenson () and Atsuko Matsuoka
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John Sorenson: Department of Sociology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada
Atsuko Matsuoka: School of Social Work, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: We use Stanley Cohen’s moral panic framework to examine concerns about fake service animals and to illuminate processes of intersectionality that shape our social relations and systems. Applying Critical Animal Studies and Critical Disability Theory, we examine media reports about fake service animals in North America to explore how these anxieties constitute a moral panic, the interests at work, and underlying ideology that motivates outrage about animals considered to be out of place. We found that classifying other animals as legitimate or not affects those animals but also impacts humans. The findings indicate that speciesist representations and restrictions imposed on nonhuman animals maintain ongoing discrimination against humans with disabilities. The study reveals how speciesism sustains ableism and advances particular economic interests. Thus, we encourage expanding research ontology to examine speciesist power relations in intersectional analysis to dismantle ableist oppressive relationships and achieve trans-species social justice (social justice beyond humans).

Keywords: moral panic; fake service animals; emotional support animals; Critical Animal Studies; Critical Disability Theory; intersectionality; speciesism; ableism; anthropocentrism; social justice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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