Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation

283 Pages·2015·2.12 MB·English

by  Anthony J. Nocella II

Anarchism and Animal Liberation
Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation
Edited by Anthony J. Nocella II, Richard J. White and
Erika Cudworth
Forewords by David N. Pellow and John C. Alessio
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-2132-6
© 2015 Anthony J. Nocella II, Richard J. White and Erika Cudworth. All rights
reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Cover image: George Tsartsianidis/Thinkstock McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To all those who continue to struggle against
supremacy, oppression and domination.
Acknowledgments
Anthony, Richard and Erika would like to thank everyone who assisted in
the production and publishing of this book. Special mention must go to
David N. Pellow and John C. Alessio for each writing a foreword for the
book and, of course, to the contributors of the book—Brian Dominick,
Drew Robert Winter, Will Boisseau, Jim Donaghey, Nekeisha Alayna
Alexis, Mara J. Pfeffer, Sean Parson, Lara Drew, Kim Socha, John
Lupinacci and Aragorn Eloff. Our thanks to Sarat Colling, Reyna Crow,
Carrie Freeman, Ruth Kinna, Joel Helfrich, Peter McLaren, Nick Ryan,
John Sorenson and Tanya Loughead for their first reviews of the book. We
would also like to thank the Institute for Critical Animal Studies for
supporting this book. More generally, we are indebted to all those who—
through their work and their activism—continue to expand the horizons of
the field of Critical Animal Studies. Finally we would also like to thank our
inter-species families and friends for their love and support. We hope that
this book helps to bring a more socially just and peaceable future into being
for them, for all.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
David N. Pellow
Foreword
John C. Alessio
Introduction: The Intersections of Critical Animal Studies and Anarchist
Studies for Total Liberation
Anthony J. Nocella II, Richard J. White and Erika Cudworth
Part I. Histories/Futures
Anarcho-Veganism Revisited
Brian Dominick
Anarchist Criminology Against Racism and Ableism and for Animal
Liberation
Anthony J. Nocella II
Doing Liberation: The Story and Strategy of Food Not Bombs
Drew Robert Winter
“Nailing Descartes to the wall”: Animal Rights, Veganism and Punk
Culture
Will Boisseau and Jim Donaghey
Part II. Intersections
Intersectionality, Species and Social Domination
Erika Cudworth
Beyond Suffering: Resisting Patriarchy and Reproductive Control
Nekeisha Alayna Alexis
Industrial Society Is Both the Fabrication Department and the Kill Floor:
Total Liberation, Green Anarchism and the Violence of Industrialism
Mara J. Pfeffer and Sean Parson
“A wider vision”: Coercion, Solidarity and Animal Liberation
Will Boisseau
Part III. Strategies
Anarchy for Educational Praxis in the Animal Liberation Movement in an
Era of Capitalist Triumphalism
Lara Drew and Kim Socha
Recognizing Human-Supremacy: Interrupt, Inspire and Expose
John Lupinacci
Do Anarchists Dream of Emancipated Sheep? Contemporary Anarchism,
Animal Liberation and the Implications of New Philosophy
Aragorn Eloff
Following in the Footsteps of Élisée Reclus: Disturbing Places of Inter-
Species Violence That Are Hidden in Plain Sight
Richard J. White
About the Contributors
List of Names and Terms
Foreword
David N. Pellow
Ashanti Alston, a former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army activist and
one-time political prisoner, once told me, “I really feel like of all the groups, the
anarchist mindset is open to understanding all the different oppressions.” I
concur and I share Alston’s perspective because, like him, I also identify as an
anarchist person of color and I see evidence every day of my life that
anarchism’s core principles and promises make a lot of sense to those of us who
are committed to total liberation—ideas, scholarship, artistic expression, and
action aimed at challenging all forms of oppression. To my knowledge
Anarchism and Animal Liberation is the first book to place anarchist studies and
Critical Animal Studies in conversation with one another, and for that reason
alone, this is a path-breaking work.
In so many ways, the essays in this book focus on expanding our understanding
of hierarchy and inequality by making sense of the often tense and violent
relationships among humans and nonhuman animal species. In so doing, the
editors and contributors facilitate the goal of achieving a better grasp of
inequality’s ramifications while also deepening our understanding of the nature
of inequality itself. Only then can we truly grasp the depths of our
socioecological crises and address them effectively.
As a sociologist I must confront the most basic yet profound questions raised in
this book: what is inequality and why does it matter? At its most basic level,
inequality means that if you are “on top” of a social system, or higher on a social
status ladder when compared with another being, then you possess or have
access to more resources, wealth, and privileges. But more importantly—and
from the standpoint of anarchist studies and Critical Animal Studies—your
elevated position above others also means that your life is of greater value than
others living within that social system. You likely own or control and affect more
of the planet and its constituent residents and life support systems than others,
you likely own or control and affect more living beings (and, therefore, likely
produce more death) than others, and you control and benefit from the ideational
systems that give meaning and legitimacy to such dynamics. Inequality is a
means of ordering the human and nonhuman worlds for the relative benefit of
some and to the detriment of others. Anarchist studies and Critical Animal
Studies explore the origins and consequences of varied forms of inequality and
hierarchy, and resolve to oppose them at every level.
Public health scholarship reveals that human life expectancy, morbidity,
mortality, and wellbeing are highly correlated with key measures of inequality.
In the case of environmental inequality and environmental racism, working class
people, people of color, women, immigrants, and Indigenous persons are more
likely to face health risks as a result of the uneven exposure to environmental
harm that social and institutional forces routinely perpetrate (practices that are
rooted in multiple forms of social inequality and hierarchy). Thus social or
human inequalities derive their existence through inequalities that also divide,
rank, and exert control over nonhumans and ecosystems. Inequality is, above all,
unnatural in the sense that it does not “just happen”—it requires a great deal of
energy, labor, and institutional effort to produce and maintain unequal societies.
This point is crucial because there is often a great deal of energy invested into
making inequalities appear to be a natural state of affairs. As ecofeminist Greta
Gaard writes, “Appeals to nature have often been used to justify social norms, to
the detriment of women, nature, queers, and persons of color.” Inequality is not
just an imbalance of resources or power, but is frequently experienced as
unearned privileges made possible by domination and injustice. Those who
suffer its consequences also routinely resist inequality. This book is a clarion call
to solidarity and a call to join those who are leading these resistance efforts.
Anarchism and Animal Liberation embraces the idea, vision, and practice of total
liberation, which views inequality as a threat to life itself—for oppressed
peoples, species, and ecosystems—and is organized around the struggle for
justice for all life forms. Individuals, collectives, organizations, networks, and
movements seeking total liberation organize and mobilize in favor of symbols,
metaphors, language, signs, representations, practices, and structures of equality
and justice to do what social movements have always done: to imagine and
create a better world. Only this world would be based on the idea that inequality
and unfreedom in all their known manifestations should be eradicated.
The editors and contributors to this invaluable collection contend that one cannot
fully grasp the foundations of racism, classism, sexism, patriarchy, ageism, and
ableism without also understanding speciesism and dominionism because they
are all ideologies and practices rooted in hierarchy and the creation of
oppositional superior and inferior subjects. This total liberation framework links
oppression and privileges across species, ecosystems, and human populations,
suggesting a theory and path toward justice and freedom—something missing in
traditional models of intersectionality. Thus the concept of total liberation
reveals both the complexity of various systems of hierarchy while also
suggesting points of intervention, transformative change, solidarity and coalition
building across myriad boundaries. Total liberation is, above all, a cultural force
because its greatest power lies in the strength and audacity of its vision. And
while it may never gain widespread appeal, it is socially significant because the
ideas embodied in the concept of total liberation constitute a threat to the core
operating principles and assumptions behind the current social order. Read this
book with great care because you will never be the same again.
Reference
Gaard, G. (2004). “Toward a queer ecofeminism.” In Rachel Stein (Ed.). New
perspectives on environmental justice: Gender, sexuality, and activism. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 21–44.

David N. Pellow is the Don Martindale Professor of Sociology at the University
of Minnesota. He is the author of three books on animal rights and
environmental topics. He has served on the boards of directors for Global
Response, the Global Action Research Center, the Center for Urban
Transformation, Greenpeace USA, and International Rivers.