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A Search for a Compassionate, Responsible, Respectful, Posthumanist Paradigm

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A Search for a Compassionate, Responsible, Respectful, Posthumanist Paradigm Towards a Vegan Eco-Feminist Critical Care Theory: A Search for A compassionate, responsible, respectful, posthumanist paradigm By Annette Mira McLellan A Thesis Submitted to Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Women and Gender Studies Copyright Annette Mira McLellan, 2014 Approved: Dr. Michele Byers - Supervisor Approved: Dr. Val Marie Johnson - Second Reader Approved: Dr. Wilma van der Veen - External Examiner Submitted: April 25, 2014 Towards a Vegan Ecofeminist Critical Care Theory: A Search for a Compassionate, Responsible, Respectful, Posthumanist Paradigm By Annette Mira McLellan Abstract Anti-speciesist theory is not often taught within the humanities nor has it been present in the Women and Gender Studies programs I have attended. To do research concerning the realities other-than-human beings face an alternative theoretical framework is necessary. This thesis explored multiple theoretical perspectives, from a deconstructive (eco) feminist stance, that attempt to bridge the human/animal divide. The six unsanctioned discourses explored were: 1) Animal Rights theory, 2) Feminist Care/Defense theory, 3) Ecofeminism, 4) Radical Anti-Speciesist theory, 5) Liberationist theory, and 6) Posthumanism. From these theoretical strands, and through an affirmative discourse analysis, an alternative hybrid theory, composed of terminology, concepts and ideas selected from the unsanctioned, was pieced together. From this hybrid theory it will be possible to do future research concerning the lives of animal beings under human despotism. This bricolage offers an alternative and intersectional lens from which to know, see and be in the world. Date Submitted: April 25, 2014 1 Special thanks and acknowledgements… …go to Spazz, Gummo, and Flea who stood (laid, played) by me (and on me), walked with me through these expropriated native lands, brought me up when I was down and who continually remind me of relational possibilities. To Drebird whom I grew up with and who grew old before me and to whom I hold a promise with to persist. To the beautiful beings who I was lucky enough to know and who were patient enough to put up with me as a child excitedly roaming the farm who are most, if not all, no longer living. And to all othered species beings who would never return the treatment humans bestow upon them back upon us. Other thanks and acknowledgements… …go to Johnny for his support and tremendous patience throughout this thesis and for all the delicious vegan food that sustained me, to Irene and Jim who continue to support me in many ways even as I stray further from the “humane,” to Baba (and Dziadek) who continually remind me of the strength I need and have to “take the world on my shoulders,” to all of my friends who have begun a transition away from the norm towards veganism, you may now have an idea of how much it ails me to see the people I love partaking in the practices I’d give my life to end. And to Michele Byers and Val Johnson who have edited and re-edited, suggested and offered me assistance along the way and to Wilma van der Veen for being my external. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3-4 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTIONS 5-19 SECTION 1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION SECTION 1.2 SPECIESISM INTRODUCED SECTION 1.3 LINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS SECTION 1.4 LOCATION/STANDPOINT/POSITIONALITY AND PRIVILEGES CHAPTER 2: THORETICAL FRAMEWORK, METHODOLOGY AND METHODS 20-35 SECTION 2.1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: DECONSTRUCTIVE ECOFEMINISM SECTION 2.2 METHODOLOGY AND METHODS: DECONSTRUCTIVE AND RE-CONSRTUCTIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS CHAPTER 3: A BRIEF CONTEXTUALIZATION 36-45 SECTION 3.1 THE CANADIAN CONTEXT AND ANIMAL EXPLOITATION: SORENSON’S ABOUT CANADA: ANIMAL RIGHTS SECTION 3.2 WOMEN AND THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: GAARDER’S WOMEN AND THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT CHAPTER 4: THE UNSANCTIONED DISCOURSES 46-87 SECTION 4.1 INTRODUCING THE UNSANCTIONED SECTION 4.2 MORAL PHILOSOPHY- ANIMAL RIGHTS SECTION 4.3 FEMINIST DEFENSE/CARE THEORY SECTION 4.4 ECOFEMINISM SECTION 4.5 ANTI-SPECIESISM SECTION 4.6 LIBERATIONIST THEORY SECTION 4.7 POSTHUMANISM CHAPTER 5: DECONSTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION, HYBRIDIZATION88-123 3 SECTION 5.1 INTRODUCING THE PROCESS SECTION 5.2 ASKING QUESTIONS AND GATHERING ANSWERS A) CONCEPTS AND TERMINOLOGY B) INTERCONNECTIONS AND FEMINIST DECONSTRUCTIVE QUESTIONS CHAPTER 6: AN ALTERNATIVE TO ACADEMIA: A ZINE 124-131 SECTION 6.1WHAT IS A ZINE? SECTION 6.2 THE METHODOLOGICAL PROCESS SECTION 6.3 WHY A ZINE? CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS & (IM) POSSIBILITIES 132-139 SECTION 7.1 PUTTING THE PIECES BACK TOGETHER AGAIN: A HYBRID SECTION 7.2 FUTURE RESEARCH POSSIBILITIES: A THEORY IN ACTION WORKS CITED/REFERENCES 140-148 APPENDICES 149-166 APPENDIX A – ZINE – THINK: CRAFTING ANOTHER WAY (ELECTRONIC/WORD FORMAT) 4 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTIONS Section 1.1 General Introductions Throughout all my years spent in academia I had not, up until I took it upon myself in this very thesis, been introduced to an adequate theoretical lens through which I might be able to frame research focusing on the realities of some of the many different creatures who exist in this world. It is from my own experience of this absence and from my own awareness of the incompleteness of the theories I had explored within academia that my thesis stems. My thesis is a search through multiple theoretical paradigms (academic as well as popular and political) that are not often taught within academia (in my experience at least) and that attempt to theorize the world as inclusive and considerate of more than merely human beings. The purpose of this exploration is to lay the foundations for a hybrid theoretical framework that I will ultimately be able to expand on and through which I will, in the future, be able to address research questions regarding the realities of diverse other than human life forms. For this thesis, however, my focus is on other-than-human animals, those animals who are flesh and blood. 1 The lens I build intends to be a compassionate, responsible, respectful, posthumanist paradigm: a vegan eco-feminist critical care theory. Concerns for other-than-human animals “have elicited a number of responses from feminists, ranging from deep engagement by ecofeminists to indifference or resistance by 1 Creatures, other-than-human beings, livings beings, etc. all of these terms, elaborated on in Chapter 5 and used throughout, refer to “animals,” as they are traditionally labelled. Although this theory’s aim is to eventually be able to incorporate, and therefore consider, microorganisms, insects, plants, ecosystems, environments, and all sorts of other life forms into its analysis and understanding it begins with those creatures who are flesh and blood. This is largely because the literatures, the unsanctioned discourses, I chose to use as the data for this thesis placed their focus on “nonhuman animals” and also because this is where my own research interests lie. 5 others. …While ecofeminism has put animal issues on the map of feminist concerns, they remain a marginal topic within feminism as a whole” (Gaarder 2011, 4). Those feminists who are deeply engaged with animals’ issues such as Carol J. Adams, Donna Haraway, Josephine Donavan, Greta Gaard, Brian Luke, Karen Davis, have not been present in the Women and Gender Studies programs in which I have participated. If anti-speciesist feminist theorists are absent from the curriculum of Women and Gender Studies programs, potential connections between speciesism and sexism remain unexplored. If we consider the interdisciplinarity of Women and Gender Studies these missed connections multiply and leave significant gaps in feminist ways of knowing. I believe the overarching reasons for these exclusionary practices in Women and Gender Studies and beyond, be they intentional or unintentional, can be directly linked to anthropocentrism, the belief that “human beings [are] the most significant entity of the universe” which leads to the interpretation of “the world in terms of human values and experiences” (Merriam-Webster 2000, 49) and speciesism, which is defined and elaborated on in Section 1.2. To the list that reads: sexist, racist, classist, homophobic, ageist, ableist, and heterosexist, speciesist has not in my experience been included in the context of academia and is also often evaded outside these institutional walls. Yet such “processes of exclusion” are an opportunity for me in the context of this thesis, in that they “make even dominant discourses vulnerable… provid[ing] the terrain on which alternative, oppositional, and counter discourses might emerge”(Strega 2005, 219-220). It is on this terrain, and to fill this gap I have observed in Women and Gender Studies, that I piece together this hybrid theory. I want to challenge the omission of theories that acknowledge other-than-human animals. I believe that Women and Gender Studies has provided me with a context from which to 6 speak about and give voice to othered animals via the exposure of alternative and oppositional texts and discourses (counter discourses). This thesis is largely a “project of centering subjugated knowledge[s]” (Brown and Strega 2005, 8) in order to challenge “the hegemony of current research paradigms” (2005, 10) which maintain humans at the centre and all other beings on the periphery. In what follows I piece together a theoretical paradigm through which both “human” and “animal” can be radically reconceptualised in order to begin to break the cycles of speciesism that are perpetually reinforced by the ways we exist, act and think under global corporate capitalism. By piecing together a model that shifts humans out of the theoretical center and takes seriously the other creatures on this planet perhaps we can begin to challenge our own individual speciesisms. By questioning our own speciesisms perhaps we can begin to challenge the speciesisms that permeate the globe.
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