Rethinking rewilding through multispecies justice

Baker & Winkler’s argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and non-human

Recognizing animal personhood in compassionate conservation

Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity should be guided by compassion for all sentient beings. Critics argue that there are 3 core reasons harming animals is acceptable in conservation programs: the primary purpose of conservation is biodiversity protection; conservation is already compassionate to animals; and conservation should prioritize compassion to humans. We used argument analysis to clarify the values and logics underlying the debate around compassionate conservation. We found that objections to compassionate conservation are expressions of human exceptionalism, the view that humans are of a categorically separate and higher moral status than all other species. In contrast, compassionate conservationists believe that conservation should expand its moral community by recognizing all sentient beings as persons. Personhood, in an ethical sense, implies the individual is owed respect and should not be treated merely as a means to other ends. On scientific and ethical grounds, there are good reasons to extend personhood to sentient animals, particularly in conservation. The moral exclusion or subordination of members of other species legitimates the ongoing manipulation and exploitation of the living worlds, the very reason conservation was needed in the first place. Embracing compassion can help dismantle human exceptionalism, recognize nonhuman personhood, and navigate a more expansive moral space

Justice Through a Multispecies Lens

The bushfires in Australia during the Summer of 2019–2020, in the midst of which we were writing this exchange, violently heightened the urgency of the task of rethinking justice through a multispecies lens for all of the authors in this exchange, and no doubt many of its readers. As I finish this introduction, still in the middle of the Australian summer, more than 10 million hectares (100,000 km2 or 24.7 million acres) of bushland have been burned and over a billion individual animals killed. This says nothing of the others who will die because their habitat and the relationships on which they depend no longer exist. People all around the world are mourning these deaths and the destruction of unique ecosystems. As humans on this planet, and specifically as political theorists facing the prospect that such devastating events will only become more frequent, the question before us is whether we can rethink what it means to be in ethical relationships with beings other than humans and what justice requires, in ways that mark these deaths as absolute wrongs that obligate us to act, and not simply as unfortunate tragedies that leave us bereft

The Fate of the Illegible Animal: The Case of the Australian Wild Donkey

The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the threads of economic inter-dependence, cultural and religious significance, militarism, friendship, ideas about and programs of conservation, and traditional Chinese medicine turned into a global industry. In this paper, we discuss four eras of entanglement of wild donkeys in Australia. During the first, now past, domesticated donkeys were exploited workers in the colonial project. In the second, present era, most Australian donkeys are unwanted wild animals, declared wildlife pests subject to mass eradication for conservation and livestock production. In the third emerging era donkeys are positioned as potential exploitable commodities in the feverish international trade and trafficking in donkey skins for the industrial production of the traditional Chinese medicine ejiao. In this paper, we look at the present and emerging eras and enquire what a just fourth future era could look like. We consider the extreme violence and cruelty inflicted upon wild donkeys under the guise of both permissive animal welfare legislation and discourses that position them as not simply ‘killable’ but ‘needing to be killed’. We suggest that to fully come to terms with the impediments to building advocacy strategies on behalf of donkeys during this second era, we need to begin by recognising their status as animals without a status: ‘illegible animals’. Finally, we imagine a third era of entanglements, where donkeys might flourish as the new wild megafauna in Australia, as respected workers in a range of valued activities such as land regeneration and fire prevention, and as friends who will nourish the project of continuing to build respectful crossspecies relationships

Rethinking rewilding through multispecies justice

Baker & Winkler’s argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and non-human

COVID and the Era of Emergencies

The threat of emergency measures introduced in face of COVID-19 has largely been framed in terms of individual rights. We argue that it is not the protection of the sovereign individual that is most at stake, but the relations between political subjects and the institutions that enable their robust political participation. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the ways in which isolation and the incapacity to discern truth or reality condition totalitarianism and are exacerbated by it, we argue that the dangers for the evacuation of democratic politics are stark in our era. We consider contemporary political action in concert in Germany to illustrate this critique of COVID-19 emergency measures. Drawing on the legal concept of “appropriateness,” we explicate how the German critical response to the shutdown is founded on a concern for democratic principles and institutions, and aims to achieve two crucial goals: governmental transparency and social-political solidarity

Vers une justice multi-espèces : cadre théorique, enjeux et programme de recherche pour les théories et politiques environnementales

This essay seeks to open a conversation about multispecies justice in environmental politics. It sets out some of the theoretical approaches, key areas of exploration, and obvious challenges that come with rethinking a core plank of liberal theory and politics. First, we discuss some of the diverse scholarly fields that have influenced the emergence of multispecies justice. We then discuss core concerns at the centre of this reconfiguration of justice – including broadening conceptions of the subject of justice and the means and processes of recognition (and misrecognition). The importance of deconstructing and decolonising the hegemony of liberal political discourse is crucial, and is part of a larger project for multispecies justice to rework a politics of knowledge and practice of political communication. Finally, we begin to explore what a commitment to multispecies justice might demand of politics and policy