Animal Readings of Precarious Lives. The «Species Discourse» and the Rules of Being Human

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n31.06

Anahí Gabriela González
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9260-3340
Université Paris VIII, Universidad Nacional de San Martín Universidad Nacional de San Juan
Conicet e Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Críticos Animales – Ileca , Argentina
anahigabrielagonzalez@gmail.com

Abstract:

This paper asks whether the so-called ‘animal question’ may be a strategic instance to deconstruct human normative and sacrificial constructs, and to stake ethical-political bets challenging differential hierarchies on life forms. Drawing from Jacques Derrida’s notion of ‘sacrificial structure’, Judith Butler’s precarious lives analysis, and Cary Wolfe’s notion of ‘species discourse’, we argue that the animal question is a crucial point to deconstruct the ‘rules of being human’, defining habitable and inhabitable bodies, and thus defining which lives are to be sacrificed. In this line, we argue that a politics of animality is needed, which contravenes and watches the «human only», disturbing the axes of precarization around gender, class, race, and species, in order to be able to commit to non-hierarchical forms of interspecies communities.

Keywords: animality, precariousness, post-humanism, non-criminal slaughter.