Animalities – serie

In the 20th century, capitalist animal agriculture emerged with a twofold mission: to ruthlessly exploit animals for their labour time and enlarge human food supplies. The results of this process are clear. Animal-sourced foods have expanded exponentially. And simultaneously, hundreds of billions of animals confront humans and machines in brutal, antagonistic relations shaped by domination and resistance. Building on Karl Marx’s value theory, Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel argues that factory farms and industrial fisheries are not merely an example of unchecked human supremacism. Nor a result of the victory of market forces. But a combination of both. In Animals and Capital Wadiwel untangles this contemporary handshake between hierarchical anthropocentrism and capitalism.

In the 20th century, capitalist animal agriculture emerged with a twofold mission: to ruthlessly exploit animals for their labour time and enlarge human food supplies. The results of this process are clear. Animal-sourced foods have expanded exponentially. And simultaneously, hundreds of billions of animals confront humans and machines in brutal, antagonistic relations shaped by domination and resistance. Building on Karl Marx’s value theory, Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel argues that factory farms and industrial fisheries are not merely an example of unchecked human supremacism. Nor a result of the victory of market forces. But a combination of both. In Animals and Capital Wadiwel untangles this contemporary handshake between hierarchical anthropocentrism and capitalism.

Robert Briggs lays out an original interpretation of Derrida’s work which takes the question of the animal beyond the critique of political and philosophical anthropocentrism. Eschewing approaches grounded in animal vulnerability, Briggs reviews theories of power, politics and culture in terms of their capacity to enable novel images of zoopolitics. Along the way he engages with recently translated work in the emerging field of philosophical ethology, including Vinciane Despret''s ''What Would Animals Say If We Asked the Right Questions?'' (2016) and Dominique Lestel''s empirical and constructivist phenomenology of human-animal relations. Through these and other interventions, Briggs departs from well-established positions in animal studies to develop new ways of thinking animal politics today.