Between Instrument and Victim: The Laboratory Animal in Biomedical Discourse

Abstract

The article examines the figure of the laboratory animal in contemporary biomedical discourse through the lens of philosophical and sociological concepts of power, sacrifice, and agency. It argues that the laboratory animal occupies a contradictory position: on the one hand, it functions as a standardized research object and biological resource used for the production of scientific knowledge; on the other hand, it is endowed with the symbolic status of a sacrifice whose death is justified by the social benefits of science and commemorated through various practices of remembrance and memorialization.

The analysis draws on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of bare life, Georges Bataille’s philosophy, Émile Durkheim’s theory of sacrifice as interpreted by Michael Lynch, and the notion of material agency developed within actor-network theory. From an Agambenian perspective, the laboratory animal appears as a being excluded from the political and legal order and reduced to mere biological existence. Drawing on Lynch’s work, the article interprets the experimental death of an animal as a form of sacrifice through which the animal body is transformed into a carrier of scientific knowledge and incorporated into the sacred order of science. In Lynch’s account, however, sacrifice remains embedded within the utilitarian logic of scientific practice: only an animal whose death has been properly organized and successfully contributes to the production of knowledge can acquire the status of a sacrifice.

The article highlights the limitations of this approach and turns to Bataille’s philosophy, in which genuine sacrifice is associated not with the production of useful outcomes but with the destruction of utility and a departure from utilitarian logic. Sacrifice is understood as a rupture with the world of things and instruments, liberating beings from subordination to external ends.

This shift also offers a new perspective on the agency of laboratory animals. If a premature death disrupts the utilitarian logic of an experiment, deprives researchers of expected data, and removes the animal from the regime of productive use, it can be interpreted as a form of resistance. Such an approach makes it possible to view the laboratory animal not only as an object of scientific intervention or a sacrificial victim, but also as a subject capable of disrupting the established order of knowledge production.

For citation: Chashchevaya, E. (2026). Between Instrument and Victim: The Laboratory Animal in Biomedical Discourse. Russia’s Directions. Vol. 4. No. 3. P. 96–114.

Additional Info

Submitted: June 2, 2026

Reviewed: July 29, 2026

Copyright: © Auhtors, 2026

Distribution: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)