The audio for this presentation is available at: https://archive.org/details/LiviaBoscardin.OurCommonFutureDevelopingANonSpeciesistCriticalTheoryOfSustainability This talk (by Livia Boscardin) was given at The Institute for Critical Animal Studies Oceania 2013 Conference: Animal Liberation and Social Justice - an Intersectional Approach to Social Change. You can find out more about this conference here: http://icasoceania.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/conference-schedule/ You can hear other talks from this conference on episode 32 of Progressive Podcast Australia: http://progressivepodcastaustralia.com/2013/07/12/cas/

1. «Our Common Future» –
Developing a Non-Speciesist,
Critical Theory of Sustainability
Livia Boscardin
Animal Liberation and Social Justice
an intersectional approach to social change
Institute for Critical Animal Studies Oceania
6 July 2013
University of Canberra, Australia

2. Brundtland-Report
«Our Common Future» 1987
“Sustainable development is development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.”
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). 1987. Our
Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and
Development. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document
A/42/427 - Development and International Co-operation: Environment.

3. Critical
Theory
Sustainable
Development
Animals

4. Structure
1. Critical Theory & Animals
2. SD & Animals
3. SD & Animals
& Critical Theory

5. Critical Theory

6. Critical Theory of the early Frankfurt
School (Germany)
• Theodor Adorno (1903-1969),
Max Horkheimer (1895-1973),
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
• Frankfurt Institute for Social Research 1923
1. Anticapitalists
2. Antifascists
3. Marxist political ecologists
4. Animal rights activitsts

7. Critical
Theory
Animals

8. Critical Theory & animals
Marcuse Horkheimer & Adorno
• Domination of human nature and nonhuman
nature (nature and other animals) = intertwined
“Below the spaces where the coolies of the earth
perish by the millions, the indescribable,
unimaginable suffering of the animals, the animal
hell in human society, would have to be depicted,
the sweat, blood, despair of the animals. *…+ The
basement of that house is a slaughterhouse *…+.”
(Horkheimer, 1978: 66-67)

9. • Empathy and solidarity towards animals
• In pain, “man and man, man and animal” are the
same (Horkheimer 1992, 298)
• We should feel as “their natural advocate, like the
happy liberated prisoner towards his fellows in
misery, that are still captivated ” (Horkheimer
1934, 2)
• Hegemonic subject = independent from nature,
cultural being, not “an animal ”
“Throughout European history the idea of the
human being has been expressed in
contradistinction to the animal”.
(Horkheimer & Adorno, Dialectics of Enlightenment)
Critical Theory & animals

10. Sustainable
Development

12. Eco-development, 1970s
N = Natural Environment = ecological S
H = Human Activities = social S
E = Economic Activities = economic S
- social justice
- self-reliance
 too radical

13. Brundtland-Report
«Our Common Future» 1987
“Sustainable development is development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.”
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). 1987. Our Common Future: Report of the World
Commission on Environment and Development. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document
A/42/427 - Development and International Co-operation: Environment.
• Poverty = source of the environmental crisis
• Growth has to be sustained

14. Mainstream image of SD
N = Natural Environment = ecological S
H = Human Activities = social S
E = Economic Activities = economic S
SD = Sustainable Development

15. Green economy / green growth /
green jobs…

16. Sustainable
Development
Animals

17. SD & Animals
• Animal rights ignored
• Environmental impact of the
consumption of animal exploitation
products: 51% of GHG emissions
• The only representation of nonhuman
animals= dead, dismembered bodies

18. Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre
Gerber, Tom Wassenaar,
Vincent Castel, Mauricio
Rosales, and Cees de Haan.
2006.
“Livestock's Long Shadow:
Environmental Issues and
Options.”
http://www.fao.org/docrep/
010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM.

19. Solutions to reduce environmental impact of the
consumption of animal exploitation products
• Abolish animal-industrial complex
• Increased efficiency & technological enhancement
• Intensification and reduction of GHG emissions,
through:
a) Environmental nutrition:
“This can be achieved by *…+ synchronizing nutrients and mineral inputs
to the animals requirement *…+, which reduce the quantity of manure
excreted per unit of feed and per unit of product”
(Livestock’s Long Shadow, p. 171).
b) Genetic engineering of the animal / her food
(Clark 2012: “environmental violence”)

20. Sustainable
Development
Animals
Critical
Theory

21. New forms of domination in times of
environmental crisis
• Domination of nature: nature = natural capital,
green growth
• Domination of animals: Animal-industrial complex,
environmental violence, scapegoats
• Domination of human animals: meat=masculinity,
sociocultural/economic imperialism,
«environmental racism»
• Technological fix = negation of being animals as
well
 Domination of human and nonhuman nature is
intertwined

22. Hegemonic masculinity & meat
«Tofu is gay meat»

23. New forms of domination in times of
environmental crisis
• Domination of nature: nature = natural capital,
green growth
• Domination of animals: Animal-industrial complex,
environmental violence, scapegoats
• Domination of human animals: meat=masculinity,
sociocultural/economic imperialism,
«environmental racism»
• Technological fix = negation of being animals as
well
 Domination of human and nonhuman nature is
intertwined

24. Thank you for your attention
livia.boscardin@unibas.ch