Manchester Political Theory Workshops (MANCEPT 2023): Animal Politics: Peace, Conflict, and Violence

  • Pepper, A. (Organiser)
  • Josh Milburn (Organiser)
  • Eva Meijer (Organiser)

Activity: Participating in or organising an academic eventParticipation in academic conference

Description

Animals face violence at human hands. Animals inflict violence upon each other, and sometimes upon us. And humans inflict violence upon each other to get access to animals (e.g., poaching) or to defend animals (e.g., militant activism). Constructions of animality may also lead to violence towards marginalized human groups, as intersectional thinkers have claimed. In response to these and other different forms of violence, human and nonhuman animals have engaged in practices of resistance and refusal. Though always conflictual, resistance is not always violent.

Making violence visible (e.g., Cubes of Truth) can lead to conflict and confrontation within the political community. This conflict only deepens as we try to find ways of living respectful of all animals. This necessarily involve compromise and the surrender of human interests. Thus, our relations with other animals, and our attempts to bring about social justice for humans and nonhumans, are often the source of violence, conflict, and strife.
Under the current conditions of human domination, peace seems far away. Indeed, it is hard to know what interspecies peace would look like. Pessimists worry that peaceful coexistence with nonhuman animals is not possible, while optimists look to emergent human-animal communities to show us how we might live differently. Indeed, perhaps we can achieve peace only if we learn from nonhuman animals themselves, and enable them to co-shape future relationships.

For this workshop, we will bring together scholars of animal ethics, animal politics, and cognate disciplines to explore questions of regrettable violence, desired peace, and the conflict we face in moving from one to the other.

Estimated audience numbers (if applicable)

40
Period11 Sept 202313 Sept 2023
Event typeConference
LocationManchester, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • peace
  • violence
  • conflict
  • animal rights
  • animal ethics
  • philosophy
  • politics
  • law