[H]uman being is not so much a value-neutral biological fact as a violent political fiction. (p. 8)
Just before the eve of 2014, Peter Lang International published the first anthology explicitly dedicated to "Critical Animal Studies." (See my resource list for some close predecessors). Given I have yet to see a review of the book online and that many CAS folk across the world are interested in the book but may not have access to the book or time to read it, I've written one myself!
My purpose is not to judge the book so much as reflect upon and reorganize its themes around questions concerning what CAS is, why it is a significant site of resistance in the university, and what it can contribute to animal advocacy beyond the university. The review is divided into four sections: (1) why CAS is an important field, (2) what CAS research and teaching involves, and CAS's commitment to (3) veganism and (4) decolonization.
WHY CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES
Fittingly, the book opens with a Forward by David Nibert, author of the canonical text Animal Rights / Human Rights, and a Preface by Ronnie Lee, co-founder of the Animal Liberation Front. In a matter of a several pages, Nibert and Lee concisely provide the historical and political context for the value of Critical Animal Studies. Historically, writes Nibert, the domination of human and nonhuman animals have gone chain-in-chain. Since the institution of animals as property,
So how does one respond to these twin industrial machines of violence? The Animal Liberation Front may have been an appropriate response to the industrialization of animal exploitation in the 1980s and 90s, however, after spending nine years in prison, Ronnie Lee has suspicions that its efficacy has declined.
Beyond serving as a conduit of knowledge production and dissemination, why is the university an important site of resistance for nonhumans and their allies? Universities are incorporated in the animal industrial complex, providing space, funding, technology, and training to present and future generations of animal exploiters and the innovation of new forms of torture and massacre. As Glasser and Roy state,
WHAT IS CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES
Given the magnitude of human-induced animal suffering and the complicity of the university, the founders of Critical Animal Studies sought to create a distinct field of study fromless political orientations to "the animal question," Human-Animal Studies and the Posthumanities. In the introduction, the book editors argue that just as nonhuman animals are objects callously and physically cut apart for the sake of knowledge in the natural sciences ("animal studies"), so nonhuman animals are symbolically dissected in the humanities. The editors suggest that many in "mainstream animal studies" may very well earn the title "theoretical vivisectors" (p. xiv).
-Weitzenfeld and Joy 2013
Just before the eve of 2014, Peter Lang International published the first anthology explicitly dedicated to "Critical Animal Studies." (See my resource list for some close predecessors). Given I have yet to see a review of the book online and that many CAS folk across the world are interested in the book but may not have access to the book or time to read it, I've written one myself!
My purpose is not to judge the book so much as reflect upon and reorganize its themes around questions concerning what CAS is, why it is a significant site of resistance in the university, and what it can contribute to animal advocacy beyond the university. The review is divided into four sections: (1) why CAS is an important field, (2) what CAS research and teaching involves, and CAS's commitment to (3) veganism and (4) decolonization.
WHY CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES
Fittingly, the book opens with a Forward by David Nibert, author of the canonical text Animal Rights / Human Rights, and a Preface by Ronnie Lee, co-founder of the Animal Liberation Front. In a matter of a several pages, Nibert and Lee concisely provide the historical and political context for the value of Critical Animal Studies. Historically, writes Nibert, the domination of human and nonhuman animals have gone chain-in-chain. Since the institution of animals as property,
[t]he possession of large numbers of these other animals became a sign of wealth and dominance, and elite male’s treatment of them as property was extended to women and devalued people. (p. ix)The result of cattle ownership? Thousands of years of military invasion, cultural destruction, human slavery, zoontic disease, gender warfare, and more. Even the contemporary military and animal industrial complexes function interdependently, with military expenditures and campaigns to capture more animal capital in Latin America (and elsewhere), and the exploitation of animals in military training and testing.
So how does one respond to these twin industrial machines of violence? The Animal Liberation Front may have been an appropriate response to the industrialization of animal exploitation in the 1980s and 90s, however, after spending nine years in prison, Ronnie Lee has suspicions that its efficacy has declined.
Although it is my belief that ALF actions have contributed significantly to a huge reduction in the fur trade and a big decline in animal experimentation here in the UK, I now have doubts as to the value of this type of activity in terms of bringing about widespread animal liberation. (p. xiii)Under new legislation such as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and state Ag-Gag initiatives, ALF, if it were to ever achieve more influence, would be crushed by the State. In addition, despite its success, such direct action bypasses the public rather than engaging with it to transform its consciousness and behavior. Without transformation and solidarity, change will not be sustainable. Critical Animal Studies thus serves as a conduit for understanding the interdependence of liberatory movements and the value of education as a vehicle for transformation and resistance to oppression.
Beyond serving as a conduit of knowledge production and dissemination, why is the university an important site of resistance for nonhumans and their allies? Universities are incorporated in the animal industrial complex, providing space, funding, technology, and training to present and future generations of animal exploiters and the innovation of new forms of torture and massacre. As Glasser and Roy state,
the university is a space hostile to nonhuman animals, who are welcomed onto campus only insofar as they are used for food, research tools, or to assist the disabled. (p. 90)It is thus not surprising that those who research and advocate the animal liberation movement's tactics and actors are surveyed, requested to reveal the identities of anonymous research subjects, prevented from accessing public documents on those who dissent to animal exploitation, and even fired and barred to enter foreign countries. Animal activists live in countries whereby decent has become criminalized (what Will Potter calls the Green Scare), and scholars and students are not somehow removed from this public situation because of their private pursuits (p. 184). Recent legislation such as AETA demonstrate a convergence of “the institutions of speciesism, the protection of private property, and the state’s regulation of dissent” (p. 193). CAS thus provides a site of resistance not only for nonhuman animals incarcerated by universities, but also human allies (and humans generally) incarcerated within the prison industrial complex (p. xxx).
WHAT IS CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES
Given the magnitude of human-induced animal suffering and the complicity of the university, the founders of Critical Animal Studies sought to create a distinct field of study fromless political orientations to "the animal question," Human-Animal Studies and the Posthumanities. In the introduction, the book editors argue that just as nonhuman animals are objects callously and physically cut apart for the sake of knowledge in the natural sciences ("animal studies"), so nonhuman animals are symbolically dissected in the humanities. The editors suggest that many in "mainstream animal studies" may very well earn the title "theoretical vivisectors" (p. xiv).
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