Animal Democracy and the Challenges of Political Participation

Chapter 8 turns the focus from activism to political participation. Non-human animal political participation is often either not considered relevant, or not considered at all, by animal rights theorists. This is problematic, because the right to political participation—to co-shaping the rules under which one lives—is not just any right. Non-human animals are individuals with their own perspectives on life and their own idea of the good life, which cannot be reduced to species-specific templates. In this chapter, the author first discusses how and whether non-human animals can co-author the laws under which they live, and she explores the normative justifications for establishing an interspecies democracy. The second section investigates which non-human animals can or should be seen as part of a shared interspecies community with humans. The chapter concludes by exploring ways to improve democratic interaction with other animals, in which the author discusses Sue Donaldson’s proposals for enabling voice and space, and ends with two examples in which humans and other animals interact politically in order to investigate how democratic non-human animal participation can be improved: material deliberation with seagulls, and human-macaque greeting rituals as new forms of political interaction.

Goose Politics

The second case study draws on the insights developed in the first two parts of the thesis to investigate the goose-human conflict around Schiphol Airport. Geese are not wanted in the fields around the airport, yet they keep coming back because they like the grass. In response, humans kill them, even though this does not solve the problem. Many different parties play a role in this conflict—politicians, animal welfare activists, farmers, the airport, the general public—but the role of the geese is underexposed. The geese are the center of attention, but no one is paying attention to their views on the matter, nor is anyone interested in working with them to solve this situation. This is unfortunate for normative and practical reasons. Seeing geese as political actors, paying attention to their species-specific behaviors, and investigating how they act politically can help us to establish new relations, and further clarify how human political concepts can play a role in interspecies relations more generally.

Worm Politics

In Chapter 6, the author discusses worm politics, both in order to further clarify the borders of the political, and in order to show the variety of possible relations with non-human animals. The chapter contrasts new materialist approaches to non-humans with political animal philosophy, and also discusses the relation between knowledge and power around the example of earthworms as laboratory animals. The author then turns to new forms of interacting with earthworms, first by discussing eating as relating and then by reviewing proposals to view them as sovereign communities, or neighbors. The chapter ends by suggesting that we should respect earthworms and start regarding them differently. Food can be a starting point in establishing new relations.

From Animal Languages to Interspecies Worlds

This chapter investigates how we can conceptualize language games between animals of different species, specifically focusing on human/non-human animal relations, and the author explores the role that language plays in constructing common worlds with other animals. The author first reflects on the relationship between language and world, using dog trainer and philosopher Vicki Hearne’s views about interspecies language games, and Heidegger’s views on the relation between world and language. She then turns to the embodied aspects of language, drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The following section focuses on understanding other animals and the role of empathy in this process. The second part of the chapter investigates how this works in practice. The author first conceptualizes ethologist Barbara Smuts’s experience of living with baboons as world-building practice. The chapter then turns to living and speaking with dogs, discussing language, habits, and building common worlds. Next, the author considers sharing households with other animals, and the role that material interventions can play in working towards understanding and improving conditions for other animals, including increasing their freedom. In the final section, the author further explores the relation between these different examples of interspecies world-building practices and freedom.

Conclusion

The conclusion discusses thinking with other animals, arguing that we need to take their agency into account in writing about them. In the second half of the conclusion, the author draws general conclusions and offers recommendations for further research together with other animals.

Deliberating Animals

In the final chapter, the author discusses how deliberation between human and non-human animals already takes place and how it can be improved, using a systemic perspective on deliberative democracy. The goal of this chapter is to bridge the distance between existing human/non-human animal dialogues at a micro-level, and human political systems. The author first discusses examples of dialogues between human and non-human animals in the animal studies literature. While these examples do justice to individual non-human animal agency, they do not challenge power relations and anthropocentrism at a macro-level. The second section of this chapter therefore turns the focus to deliberative theory. The author analyzes the relation between democratic inclusion and different forms of speech, focusing on non-human animal languages and the embodied and habitual character of political communication in order to incorporate non-human animal voices. In the third section, the author argues for taking into account the temporal, spatial, material, and relational dimensions of the interaction. Section four moves to translate these insights into existing democratic mechanisms by investigating the relevance of the systemic turn in deliberative democracy for incorporating non-human animal agency and interspecies encounters in existing democratic structures.

Animal Politics

Chapter 4 challenges political anthropocentrism. It first discusses critiques of anthropocentric interpretations of politics from the perspective of justice. These critiques are important, but we also need to investigate the power relations that have shaped our understanding of politics, and investigate the different forms of institutional and epistemic violence that play a role in these processes. Our systems of knowledge, which are interconnected with cultural practices, intersect with political exclusion. While humans recognize direct violence towards other animals, institutional violence is often not recognized because it is interconnected with epistemic violence, rendering it invisible. Language plays a role in this process. Other animals are formally excluded from political institutions and practices because they do not speak, which refers back to a view of language as exclusively human, and this view is interconnected with cultural practices and knowledge production. Challenging this requires rethinking politics with other animals. Non-human animals exercise political agency, and recognizing this is part of seeing them as full persons. In addition to analyzing power relations, we should aim to get a better view of what constitutes a good life for them, and develop new forms of politics in interaction with them.

Stray Philosophy

In the first case study, the author develops the ideas about language and politics further by discussing her own personal experiences with Romanian stray dog Olli around three themes: language, freedom, and politics. The author focuses on the first three months with Olli, in which a common language and habits were created and a certain level of freedom was established for him. The first section shows how their common language and habits came into existence. This created a common world, as well as a way to express that world, which changed both the dog and the human in question. The second section discusses learning to walk on the lead in relation to freedom and oppression in interspecies communities. The last section focuses on Olli’s political agency as a former stray dog, both on the micro- and macro-levels. By emphasizing Olli’s perspective and actions, this chapter also aims to explore ways to move beyond anthropocentrism in philosophy. The author learned to see the world through his eyes, and experienced the constraints dogs must live with in cities anew, because everything was new for him. Living together changed both of them.

The Animal, What a Word!

In chapter 1, the author investigates the relation between language and anthropocentrism. By discussing the relation between human language and non-human animal exclusion, she argues that, in order to adequately address anthropocentrism, we need to redefine language in and through interaction with non-human animals. The first section of this chapter criticizes an anthropocentric view of language, reason, and animals. The author discusses the connection between the concepts “language” and “animal” in part of the Western philosophical tradition, using the work of René Descartes and Martin Heidegger as examples. We find an alternative approach in the work of Jacques Derrida, which is discussed in the second part of the chapter, and which complicates stereotypical views about “the animal” and critically examines the image of the human that is connected to it. His critique is valuable, but he provides only a negative view of non-human animals, language, and human-animal relations. In the final section, the author argues that this is unfortunate: in order to adequately address anthropocentrism, we need to redefine these concepts in and through interaction with non-human animals.

Introduction

Orangutan Ken Allen was born in the San Diego Zoo. While still in the nursery he was already trying to unscrew every nut he could get his hands on, and he used humans as objects to climb on in order to escape the room. In the years that followed, he perfected his techniques, which led him to escape his enclosure many times. This forced the zoo to alter the fences around the orangutan enclosure and change their windows and locks. They also tried to distract him by bringing in females, and they hired spies posing as visitors in an attempt to find out how he did it. But Ken Allen was not the only orangutan who had a desire to leave captivity. His mate Vicki once took over from him, unbolting a door after he was caught, and escaped. Kumang and Sara, two sisters from the same group, organized and coordinated their own escapes, for example, by using a mop handle that one of them held in place while the other climbed it. Cooperative orangutan resistance is found in many other zoos as well, including in the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, where a group of five orangutans slipped through several security doors and climbed over a high wall. Neither bananas nor water from fire hoses could convince them to go back in, and they had to be tranquilized. These examples are not the only ones available—orangutan resistance is a structural problem for zoos, often leading them to isolate individuals or break up family bonds by relocating orangutans (...