RESERVOIR DOGS Greyhound Racing, Mimesis and Sports-Related Violence

Abstract Sociologists have been slow to turn their attention to ‘blood sports ’ involving animals or activities where animals suffer neglect and abuse. Although there seems to be a heightened sense of public contempt in many countries toward the outwardly cruel treatment of animals such as dogs, and toward the place of animals in ‘sport ’ per se, the ways in which racing greyhounds may be enmeshed in wider formations of sports-related abuse and violence continues to be ignored. In this article, data gathered on greyhound abuse in the North American racing figuration are examined in the process of understanding the social chains of interdependence necessary to perpetuate ‘tolerable ’ deviance against the dogs. Using central tenets of figurational sociology, patterns of neglect and abuse are discussed and conceptual typologies of the main ‘players ’ in the greyhound figuration are outlined. Key words • animal abuse • figurational sociology • greyhound racing • mimesis • sports-related violence The Ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks revered the greyhound, the world’s oldest purebred dog, as a companion, hunter and religious icon (Barnes, 1994; Branigan, 1997); and such reverence seems to have lasted through the Middle Ages (Baker, 1996). By the turn of the 18th century, colonial expansion led to transformations in the ‘distinguished ’ cultural status of the greyhound. Greyhounds were used less for hunting game and more for ‘taming ’ colonized peoples of the ‘New World’. For example, greyhounds were employed by British and French explorers to aid in the slaughter of native populations in the Caribbean and, soon after, throughout the southern Americas. Relatively shortly thereafter, however, greyhounds were transported to North America for mor