Following in the Footsteps of Élisée Reclus. Disturbing Places of Inter-Species Violence That Are Hidden in Plain Sight (original) (raw)
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Violence, Animality, and Territoriality
Research in Phenomenology, 2018
The aim of this article is to address the question of the anthropological difference by focusing on the intersubjective relation between the human and the animal in the context of a phenomenological analysis of violence. Following some Levinasian and Derridian insights, my goal is to analyze the structural differences between interspecific and intraspecific violence by asking how the generic phenomenon of violence is modalized across various levels: from human to human, from human to animal, from animal to human, from animal to animal. I will address questions of incarnated vulnerability and altered states of affectivity, and I will relate the various forms of violence emerging in the context of the anthropological difference to the question of territoriality, arguing that violence is structurally modified in relation to particular articulations of our worldly spatiality.
Cultural Anthropology, 2023
Abstract Activism in favor of non-human animals is on the rise throughout Mexico despite ongoing and episodic violence. Activists, also known as animalistas, represent themselves as the “voice” of non-human animals as they seek rights and well-being for animals. In Ciudad Juárez, a border city once considered the most dangerous city in the world (2008–2012), animalistas engage in complex ways with non-human bodies as they seek to “speak” for them. This article analyzes the relationship between injured bodies and voice in Ciudad Juárez’s animalista movement, with the act of the rescue as the point of inception. Injured animal bodies prove central for activists because anthropogenic violence transforms dogs’ bodies. Non-human injured bodies, and their visual representations, allow animalistas to position themselves as the voice of an animal that survived an abuse while also individualizing and depolitizicing—through the discourse of pathology—violence against dogs. RESUMEN A pesar de la violencia continua y esporádica en México, el activismo a favor de los animales no humanos ha incrementado. En la búsqueda de derechos y el bienestar de animales no-humanos, las personas activistas, o animalistas, se presentan a sí mismas como la “voz” de los animales. En la ciudad fronteriza de Ciudad Juárez, que alguna vez fue consideraba la más violenta del mundo (2008–2012), las animalistas se relacionan de manera compleja con los cuerpos no-humanos para poder “hablar” por ellos. Este artículo analiza la relación entre cuerpos lesionados y voz en el movimiento animalista de Ciudad Juárez, enfatizando el acto del rescate como un momento clave. Los cuerpos lesionados de perros son fundamentales para las activistas porque la violencia antropogénica los transforma. Así los cuerpos animales lesionados, y sus representaciones visuales, les permiten posicionarse como la voz de animales sobrevivientes al abuso, mientras que individualiza y despolitiza—a través de un discurso patologizante—la violencia contra perros.
Killing Animals: Sociology, Species Relations and Institutionalized Violence
The Sociological Review, 2015
Influential voices have argued for a sociology which acknowledges the way we are co-constituted with a range of non-human species as part of the condition of life on this planet. Despite this, sociology has generally retained a conception of the social that is centred on the human. This paper argues for the inclusion of non-human animals in sociological agendas, focusing on the emerging field of the sociology of violence. It examines the institutions and processes through which non-human animals are subjected to different forms of violence, most notably, mass killing. The practice of killing animals is routine, normative, institutionalized and globalized. The scale of killing is historically unprecedented and the numbers killed are enormous. The paper argues that this killing of non-humans raises questions around inequalities and intersectionality, human relations with other species, the embedding of violence in everyday practices and links between micro and macro analyses. These ar...
Are non-human animals our friends or enemies? In this provocative book, Dinesh Wadiwel argues that our mainstay relationships with billions of animals are essentially hostile. The War against Animals asks us to interrogate this sustained violence across its intersubjective, institutional and epistemic dimensions. Drawing from Foucault, Spivak and Derrida, The War against Animals argues that our sovereign claim of superiority over other animals is founded on nothing else but violence. Through innovative readings of Locke and Marx, Dinesh Wadiwel argues that property in animals represents a bio-political conquest that aims to secure animals as the “spoils of war.” The goal for pro-animal advocacy must be to challenge this violent sovereignty and recognize animal resistance through forms of counter-conduct and truce With a Foreword by Matthew Calarco.
Violent Beasts and Legal Animals
Rethinking Law and Violence, 2020
What kind of animal politics, what kind of human politics, makes possible in India a negative anthropology of the animal that is accurate and ethical? The essay suggests that the correct approach should include an uncompromising and fully non-deterministic conception of law’s role in human relations with the animal. The essay is a [re]examination of law, violence, and animals/ animality. It draws upon sources from philosophy, history, law, culture, art, and society to shift the focus of the discussion away from ‘being’ and towards ‘becomings’, that is, towards potential possibilities and the ground for individuation. The musings on crows, on woundedness and the difficulty of reality, on violence and order in the postcolony, on the rule of law for nature in India, and on the problems and perils of utilitarian reason and a narrow protectionist approach for animals—suggest that while an uncompromising and completely non-deterministic aesthetic-politico-legal approach to violence and an...
dePICTions vol. 4, Victimhood (June-July 2024)
Animals are nothing if not victims of human violence. We subject them not only to ruthless systemic violence through the animal industrial complex, but also to epistemic violence by reducing them to defective, elemental, and inferior forms of existence. We denigrate them, call them stupid, project our worst qualities onto them, and punish them for not being human. In this article, we explore various perspectives on animal victimhood with the modest aim of teasing out some tensions and demonstrating the need for a nuanced approach. https://parisinstitute.org/animals-as-victims/