Animal Politics: Peace, Conflict and Violence
Angie Pepper (University of Roehampton); Eva Meijer (University of Amsterdam); Josh Milburn (Loughborough University)
Humanities Bridgeford Street Building: Room G.6
Animals face violence at human hands. Animals inflict violence upon each other, and sometimes upon us. And humans inflict violence upon each other to get access to animals (e.g., poaching) or to defend animals (e.g., militant activism). Constructions of animality may also lead to violence towards marginalized human groups, as intersectional thinkers have claimed. In response to these and other different forms of violence, human and nonhuman animals have engaged in practices of resistance and refusal. Though always conflictual, resistance is not always violent.
Making violence visible (e.g., Cubes of Truth) can lead to conflict and confrontation within the political community. This conflict only deepens as we try to find ways of living respectful of all animals. This necessarily involve compromise and the surrender of human interests. Thus, our relations with other animals, and our attempts to bring about social justice for humans and nonhumans, are often the source of violence, conflict, and strife.
Under the current conditions of human domination, peace seems far away. Indeed, it is hard to know what interspecies peace would look like. Pessimists worry that peaceful coexistence with nonhuman animals is not possible, while optimists look to emergent human-animal communities to show us how we might live differently. Indeed, perhaps we can achieve peace only if we learn from nonhuman animals themselves, and enable them to co-shape future relationships.
For this workshop, we will bring together scholars of animal ethics, animal politics, and cognate disciplines to explore questions of regrettable violence, desired peace, and the conflict we face in moving from one to the other.
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11:00-12:30 |
Registration |
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12:30-13:3 |
Lunch |
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13:30-14:00 |
Welcome Speech |
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14:00-16:00 |
Session 1 Violence and Animal Activism Chair: Josh Milburn Chiara Stefanoni: Toward a Materialist Critique of Violence: Challenging “Slaughterhouses with Glass Walls” Discourses in Animal Ethics Wayne Williams: To the Destruction of What Is: Militant Animal Activism, Agon, and the Liberal Misconception of Democracy |
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16:00-16:30 |
Tea and Coffee Break |
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16:30-17:30 |
Session 1 (continued) Talia Shoval: Should We Fight for Nature? Posthumanist Politics and the Ethics of Environmental Resistance |
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17:45-19:00 |
Wine Reception |
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19:30 |
Conference Dinner |
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9:30-11:30 |
Session 2 Animals in War Chair: Angie Pepper Josh Milburn: Ethically Appraising the Military Use of Animals Stacy Banwell: The War against Nonhuman Animals |
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11:30-12:00 |
Tea and Coffee Break |
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12:00-13:00 |
Session 2 (continued) Alasdair Cochrane: Contingent Pacifism and Animal Rights |
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13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
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14:00-16:00 |
Session 3 Activism and Human Duties Chair: Wayne Williams Steve Cooke: Can I Get a Witness? The Ethics of Witnessing in Animal Rights Activism Sara van Goozen: A Responsibility to Protect Biodiversity? |
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16:00-16:30 |
Tea and Coffee Break |
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16:30-17:30 |
Session 3 (continued) Joel Joseph: What’s the Harm in Preventing Predation? |
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9:30-11:30 |
Session 4 Animal Agency, Intersectionality and Multispecies Relations Chair: Angie Pepper Esther Alloun: Intersectionality and Multispecies Justice in Conflict: The Affective Geographies, Politics, and Practices of Shared Struggles – via Zoom Sarah DiMaggio: Learning from Animals: “Kinning” as Political Resistance |
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11:30-12:00 |
Tea and Coffee Break |
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12:00-13:00 |
Discussion Open discussion about work in progress, plans for the future and possible collaborations. |
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13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
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14:00-16:00 |
Session 5 Inter- and Intraspecies Hierarchies: From Violence to Coexistence Chair: Josh Milburn Virginia Thomas: The Road to Peace is Paved with Violence: Renewed Coexistence as a Possible Route to Mutual Flourishing of Humans and Reintroduced Species Gabriel Vidal: Superorganism, Anthropocentrism, and Violence: Rethinking Ecological Perspectives on Ethics |
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16:00-16:30 |
Tea and Coffee Break |
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16:30-17:30 |
Session 5 (continued) Yamini Narayanan: ‘A pilgrimage of camels’: Dairy capitalism, nomadic pastoralism, and subnational Hindutva statism in Rajastha – via Zoom |
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17:30 |
End of Conference |
