Emerging New Voices in Critical Animal Studies

Acknowledgments

We the editors (Anthony J. Nocella II, Nathan Poirier, and Annie Bernatchez) of this book would like to thank first the contributors within this book—Sean Parson, Kati Lewis, Allison Gray, Maryline El Khoury, Kenzo Jacquemin, Alaina Interisano, Sarah Tomasello, Annie Bernatchez, Deniz Hosbay Bayraktar, Ozgur Bayraktar, and Will Boisseau. We would also like to thank the publisher Peter Lang Publishing and those that work with the publisher such as Jackie Pavlovic, Patty Mulrane, Dani Green, and Preetha Ambat. We would also like to thank those that wrote reviews for the book: Z. Zane McNeill, Kati Lewis, Peace Studies Journal, Dr. S. Marek Muller, Dr. Richard J. White, Dr. David Nibert, Lucas Alan Dietsche, Dr. Clyde Rivers, J. Ellis, and Dr. Erik Juergensmeyer. This book would not be possible if not for the organizations and academic departments that support our scholarship and activism such as Save the Kids, Academy for Peace Education, Utah Reintegration Project, Ecoability Collective, Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Lowrider Studies Book Series, Arissa Media Group, Poetry Behind the Walls, Wisdom Behind the Walls, Durango Peace and Justice, Salt Lake Peace and Justice, Green Theory and Praxis Journal, Transformative Justice Journal, Department of Criminal Justice at Salt Lake Community College, Peace Studies Journal, Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Academy for Critical Animal Studies, Critical Animal Studies Society, Lowrider Studies Journal, and Journal of Hip Hop Studies. Finally, would like to thank our friends and family.

Sean Parson

Writing at the, hopefully, end of a pandemic is different than it was before. Like all social, political, and ecological crises, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the tensions that already existed in our society and brought them to the fore. For instance, during the year 2020, it is estimated that the world’s billionaires saw a jaw-dropping 54% increase in their wealth. While most people struggled financially, as job losses peaked and governments did little to protect working folks, and emotionally, as the weight of well over 3.5 million dead haunt the memory of the living. Mothers, daughters, sons, neighbors, friends, strangers have died in mass during this last year. Sadly, the crippling economic and psychological costs of the year are more an example of things to come with the catastrophic aspects of climate change only worsening each year, as economic inequality grows to record levels and as neo-fascist political mobilizations grow throughout the world. We are at a time—and maybe we always are—in which what we collectively do now lays bare whether we ended up with, as Rosa Luxemburg famously said, “socialism or barbarism.” Yet, in the public debates and discussion for the future—especially in mainstream media and in most leftist sources—this question is always centered around the quality of life of humans. The nonhuman animals are erased from the discussion. Primarily because for nonhuman animals whose bodies are bred, raised, and slaughtered for the benefit of human animals’ barbarism has been the norm.

This was a long way to get to the importance and value of this book. Critical animal studies has been a leading voice analyzing and resisting the commodification of life and industrial capitalism’s barbarism. Unlike most academic fields or disciplines, critical animal studies has always centered praxis. The work is not purely intellectual or performative, which sadly most academic work is. As an approach to critical theory, CAS calls on the scholars to be activists and on the activists to be a scholar. It also, unlike a lot of well-funded nonprofit oriented animal rights organizations—like PETA—understands the complexity of modern life under industrial Capitalism, Racial Capitalism, and settler colonialism and ←xii | xiii→advocates for an anti-capitalism that centers not just animal liberation but the abolition of white supremacy, patriarchy, militarism, settler colonialism, ableism, and all other destructive structures that cause violence and limit flourishing and happiness for all. Critical animal studies adds an essential voice to the debates that happen in the halls of academia, among individuals strategizing actions inspired by the ELF and ALF, and in the consensus meetings of activists in parks and community centers. The new voices in this book are an example of the activist-scholar and scholar-activist that makes CAS unique. We also see the injection of a new spirit, new focus, new passion, and new ideas. These ideas do not come just from the classrooms—as we see way too often in academia—but from people committed to the work on the ground. Their experiences and deep passions made this book happen, and it’s those passions and activist projects that make CAS the powerful voice it is.