Reforming Animal Law through an Intersectional Lens
Non-human animals are exploited just about everywhere you look in society. Whether that be in the form of food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, the pet trade, sporting activities, or the illegal wildlife trade, nonhuman animal bodies are treated as inferior and as products to satisfy human desires.
The law largely reinforces this idea, which, due to its colonial, western, and anthropocentric roots, simultaneously oppresses human groups such as women, individuals of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community. The oppression of non-humans and marginalised humans ‘intersect’ and reinforce each other, and the liberation of both must be seen as a joint task in order for a holistic and just solution to be produced.
This PhD project will investigate how the law can be reformed in an ‘intersectional’ manner, which targets the liberation of both non-humans and marginalised humans from oppression, adopting a three-pronged approach to answering this question. First, the boundary between non-human and human animals that exists in societies/cultures will be investigated and challenged. Second, the intersectional potential of animal law will be explored and recommendations made to unlock it. Third, the function of the law in the process of liberating an oppressed group will be explored, in order to understand how we can use the law in order to contribute to the liberation of non-human and human animals.
This project and the research produced aims to move the academic field closer to finding the most effective solution to the oppression of both non-human and human individuals.