Szczygielska, Marianna. “Pandas and the Reproduction of Race and Heterosexuality in the Zoo.”

Szczygielska analyses China’s giant panda loan system in relation to Canada and the Toronto Zoo. By focusing on the political meaning of pandas and the history of Chinese migrants in Canada, she argues that the giant pandas in the zoo embody a racialized animality and fantasies about the ideal form of sexuality for Asian immigrants. Her analysis of the reproduction of animals in relation to race/gender/queerness is a valuable contribution to the debate about how animal bodies are conserved and reproduced in captivity.

Similar texts:

• Buckingham, Kathleen Carmel, Jonathan Neil William David, and Paul Jepson. 2013. “Diplomats and Refugees: Panda Diplomacy, Soft ‘Cuddly’ Power, and the New Trajectory in Panda Conservation.” Environmental Practice 15 (3): 262– 270. DOI:10.1017/S1466046613000185.
• Halberstam, Judith [Jack]. 2010. “Animal Sociality Beyond the Hetero/Homo Binary.” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 20 (3): 321 – 331. DOI: 10.1080/0740770X.2010.529255

Szczygielska, Marianna. 2019. “Pandas and the Reproduction of Race and Heterosexuality in the Zoo.” In Zoo Studies: A New Humanities, edited by Tracy McDonald and Daniel Vandersommers, 211 – 236. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.