On the theme: « Domination and Emancipation Submitted to the Proof of the Animal/Human Boundary »
Editors: Émilie Dardenne and Réjane Sénac
Émilie Dardenne et Réjane Sénac
Foreword (p. 15-26)
Philippe Le Doze
«Behind the Human Being, the Beast: The Porosity of a Border During Greco-Roman Antiquity» (p. 31-75)
Abstract: During classical antiquity, the Greeks and Romans developed a patrimonial vision of nature and living things, arguing for the ontological superiority of humans over other species and a speciesist teleology. De facto, an intangible boundary seems to have been drawn early on. This dominant discourse tends to obscure the persistence in the minds of the Ancients of a porosity between humans and animals: the awareness of a deep kinship with other animals was, ultimately, difficult to completely erase. Perceptible through an original conception of the soul, it had consequences even in the definition of humanity and the way we looked at individuals and certain categories of humans, children and barbarians in particular. This porosity had ancient roots, some of which can be traced back to archaic Greece. The survey suggests that the break with other species was the result of a choice, of which the West is still the heir, and that what for a long time was merely a distance led to the creation of a frontier.
Keywords: Antiquity, Porosity, Frontier, Identity, Similarity, Animality, Humanity, Soul.
Fabien Carrié
«Against All Oppression. Comparative Analysis of Attempts to Decompartmentalise Barriers Between Human Emancipation Struggles and the Animal Cause» (p. 77-117)
Abstract: This article offers a comparative analysis of three attempts to decompartmentalise the struggles for human emancipation and the animal rights movement, and examines the conditions under which these intellectual formalisations, initiated in English-speaking countries, were possible. It begins by reviewing the different configurations that have seen the emergence of these particular forms of animal advocacy and the authors and thinkers who have developed them. A synchronic comparison shows that these actors occupied dominant positions in the intellectual field at the time they formulated these syncretic critiques. These conceptions therefore always respond to a twofold challenge: the affirmation of heterodox positions in the fields to which they belong, and the perpetuation of a heretical enterprise of representation within the space of competition for the right to speak on behalf of animals.
Keywords: Animal Rights Movement, Social History of Political Ideas, Political Representation, Analysis of Social Movements.
Émilie Dardenne
«From Analogy to Entanglement: Human Slavery and Animal Exploitation» (p. 119-160)
Abstract: This article returns to the analogy between human enslavement, particularly in its US form, and animal exploitation. It will start from a rereading of The Dreaded Comparison. Human and Animal Slavery, by Marjorie Spiegel (1988), and will enrich it with later studies on similar or related questions.
One can wonder whether the analogy drawn between human slavery and animal exploitation is a good tool to think about common logics of domination, and the ideologies that undergird them. The questions that will guide the study will be the following: beyond their etymology, what link can be established between domestication and domination? Is the epistemology of entanglement more appropriate for thinking about the connection between human enslavement and animal exploitation than the epistemology of analogy? Finally, does the abolition of slavery (in its US form) make it possible to envisage a possible horizon of emancipation for non-human animals?
Keywords: Enslavement, Slavery, Animal Exploitation, Domination, Domestication, Ideology, United States.
Sam Ducourant et Phœbé Mendes
«For a materialist approach to anthropozoological relations» (p. 163-200)
Abstract: Unlike human/animal relations, social relations of gender and race are regularly studied through a materialist approach. Yet this approach makes it possible to think about the continuum of dominations while avoiding analogies, which fail to explain the relationship between these terms (Maurizi, 2021 and Wadiwel 2023). Given that neither the concept of species, defined in terms of reproductive isolation (De Queiroz, 2007), nor the more general notion of socio-economic category (Noske,1989 and Nibert,2002) provide a satisfactory account of the exploitative relationships between humans and animals, this paper proposes to apprehend them as material relations of production, using the theoretical tools forged by Marx and Engels. It shows that the distinctions (between humans and animals as well as between e.g. farm and companion animals) have been constituted and modified in interaction with animal production systems. We will also show how the creation of “productive breeds” (e.g. “laying hens” or “broilers”) and the use of names based on usage (“companion” or “livestock”), all contribute to reinforcing and naturalizing unequal treatment.
Keywords: Materialism, Marxism, Exploitation, Human/Animal Relationships, Species.
Dinesh Wadiwel
«Chicken Harvesting Machine: Animal Labor, Resistance, and the Time of Production» (p. 201-237)
Abstract: Emerging perspectives on the labor of animals highlight the role of non-humans in generating value. However, few of these accounts explore the role of resistance in shaping the character of animal labor and the structure of this activity within value chains. In this essay, I explore the relationship between animal labor under capitalism, its relationship to resistance, and the potential offered by contemplation of resistance to capitalist time. First, I examine animal labor, focusing particularly on animals used for food, and attempt to untangle the complexity of their structural place within systems of value under capitalism. Second, I discuss the specific antagonism that shapes the work of food animals, where animals confront humans, and increasingly machines, in relations of hostility. My aim here is to show the way that resistance is tied to the structural position of food animals as laboring subjects. The refinement of technologies of domination, and their response to the “wild” resistances of animals, aims at bringing animal labor time into sync with the rhythms of productive processes. This perspective highlights the politics of time involved with animal subordination to capital, but it also perhaps connects with a utopian imagining of life for animals outside of this time.
Keywords: Animals, Labor, Resistance, Marx, Capitalism.
Tom Bry-Chevalier
«A Blurred Border: Animality, Disability, and Humanity» (p. 241-307)
Abstract: Drawing on published works in disability studies and animal ethics, this article offers a critical analysis of the convergence between anti-ableist and anti-speciesist struggles. We first examine the similarities between these movements in terms of their theoretical framework, but also in their approaches to fighting for justice. We particularly emphasize the essential role of allies, the condemnation of moral hierarchization of individuals based on their social contribution and physical and cognitive abilities, as well as the necessity of considering the heterogeneity of experiences within the same social group. The convergence of these struggles is not self-evident and has met with resistance from some disabled people, particularly regarding the association between disability and animality, especially since animalization remains an active dehumanizing process in ableist discrimination. However, we argue that moving beyond the humanity/animality boundary offers a better conceptual foundation for challenging these forms of domination with common roots. This convergence appears particularly necessary, as the boundary separating humans from nonhuman animals participates in the same logic of distinction and inferiorization that allows certain groups of people to be socially and symbolically dehumanized, despite belonging to the species homo sapiens. Our aim is thus to critique the boundary separa ting humans from animals by emphasizing that it is less ontological or biological than normative and moral. We demonstrate this by highlighting how this boundary largely rests on an appeal to « Nature » and on the philosophical valorization of rational autonomy at the expense of vulnerability.
Keywords: Disability Studies, Animal Studies, Ableism, Speciesism, Social Justice, Vulnerability, Intersectionality.
Bruno Frère et Véronique Servais
«Remaking world in common. Reflections on the conditions of possibility of a multi-species policy» (p. 309-361)
Abstract: Starting from the observation that the degradation of living conditions on earth by capitalism has highlighted the interdependence between human and non-human animals, we would like to raise the question of collective multi-species resistance. Recognising animals as comrades in struggle means first thinking about the conditions for building a “common” multi-species political discourse. We aim here to redraw, on the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the coordinates of the worldly flesh we share with living beings in general and animals in particular. We then turn to the very nature of multi-species political communication. It seems to us that this can only begin with forms of bodily conversation in which expressivity, coordination, empathy and emotional hybridity produce singular forms of communication.
Keywords: Capitalocene, Generative Interspecies Communication, Political Animal Studies, Multi-species Collectives, Flesh Phenomenology, Animal Language.
Open Topic
Acheton Altenor
«Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Economic Challenges in the Aftermath of Independence: A Neo-Institutional Analysis» (p. 365-421)
Abstract: In this article, the author proposes, from an interdisciplinary perspective, a new analysis of Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ responses to Haiti’s economic challenges in the aftermath of independence, with a particular emphasis on foreign trade. Indeed, although the period of Dessalines’ regime has been widely discussed in Haitian historiography, his economic measures, generally integrated into broader national historical narratives, are often partially addressed. Moreover, Dessalines’ responses to economic problems – particularly those relating to the agrarian question after independence – are often interpreted in terms of conflicts between Blacks and Mulattos, or as an effort to promote social justice by preventing the former freemen from appropriating the lands of the former colonists. Based on this observation, the author has opted for another possible path: that of institutions, as conceptualized by Douglass C. North. This theoretical framework enables us to grasp how Dessalines’s conception of the socio-economic problems he faced, and his responses to them, were shaped by historical legacies. This study offers, for example, another perspective on the decree of September 6, 1805. However, the author’s approach is intended to be exploratory; it is as well an invitation to scholars of Haiti’s socio-economic history to further explore the institutional path.
Keywords: Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Institutions, Economic History of Haiti, Douglass C. North, Mental Models, Neo-Institutionalism, Path Dependence, Foreign Trade, Interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinary.
Book Review
Émilie Michaud
The Right Not to Use the Internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences, Dariusz Kloza, Elżbieta Kużelewska, Eva Lievens et Valerie Verdoodt (dir.), Routledge, coll. « Current Debates in European Integration », 2025, 276 p.
Scientific Committee
Allagnat, Malou, Université de Bretagne occidentale, Brest, France ; Amalric, Marion, Université de Tours, Tours, France ; Andrieu, Sarah, Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France ; Armagnague-Roucher, Maïtena, Université de Genève, Genève, Suisse ; Bakshi, Sandeep, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France ; Balard, Frédéric, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France ; Bastide, Loïs, Université de la Polynésie française, Outumaoro, Tahiti, Polynésie française ; Bayet, Brigitte, Université Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France ; Bedoin, Diane, Université de Rouen Normandie, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France ; Betga-Djenkwé, Noël Lavallière, Université de Ngaoundéré, Ngaoundéré, Cameroun ; Blakley, Christopher, Morgan State University, Baltimore, États-Unis ; Blanc, Nathalie, Université de Paris, Paris, France ; Boutanquoi, Michel, Université Marie et Louis Pasteur, Besançon, France ; Brassier Rodrigues, Cécilia, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France ; Breteau, Clara, Université Paris 8, Paris, France ; Briffaut, Xavier, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France ; Burnay, Nathalie, Université de Namur, Namur, Belgique ; Chaudet, Béatrice, Nantes Université, Nantes, France ; Delory-Momberger, Christine, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, France ; Doré, Émilie, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France ; Fancello, Sandra, Institut des mondes africains, Aubervilliers, France ; Findeli, Alain, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada ; Gerbier, Laurent, Université de Tours, Tours, France ; Germaine, Marie-Anne, Université Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, France ; Guinard, Pauline, École normale supérieure – Paris Sciences et lettres, Paris, France ; Guyot, Sylvain, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Pessac, France ; Hamus-Vallée, Réjane, Université Évry Paris-Saclay, Évry, France ; Hert, Philippe, Aix-Marseille Université, Marseille, France ; Hummel, Cornelia ; Université de Genève, Genève, Suisse ; Lambert, Roseline, chercheure indépendante, Montréal, Québec, Canada ; Laplace-Treyture, Danièle, Université de Pau, Pau, France ; Legrand, Marine, École nationale des ponts et chaussées, Champs sur Marne, France ; Lépine, Valérie, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, Montpellier, France ; Levrard, Sophie, Université catholique de l’Ouest, Angers, France ; Marzo, Pietro, Université TÉLUQ, Québec, Québec, Canada ; Meissonnier, Joël, Centre d’études et d’expertise sur les risques, l’environnement, la mobilité et l’aménagement (CEREMA), Lille, France ; Metz, Claire, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France ; Mons, Isabelle, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, France ; Morillon, Anne, Le Mans Université, Le Mans, France ; Mutter, Hélène, Université libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgique ; Ouakrat, Alan, Université Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris, France ; Piazessi, Benedetta, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France ; Proia-Lelouey, Nadine, Université de Caen Normandie, Caen, France ; Revol, Claire, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France ; Roginsky, Sandrine, Université catholique de Louvain, Mons, Belgique ; Scheele, Judith, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France ; Schirrer, Mary, Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France ; Thura, Mathias, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France ; Trépos, Jean-Yves, Université de Lorraine, Metz, France ; Vandevelde-Rougale, Agnès, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France ; Vincent, Stéphanie, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon, France ; Yoro, Blé Marcel, Université Houphouët-Boigny, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.