Recently I finished Donna Haraway’s When Species Meet (University of Minnesota Press, 2008). This post isn’t about how great the book is. It’s really, really great. This post is about my frustration with Haraway’s descriptions of veganism, specifically vegan views about abolitionism, or abolishing entirely our use of animals.
Why I read this book
Like many feminists, I think abstract, universal moral claims usually miss the mark. Except when it comes to animal ethics. On issues such as veganism, I’m much more comfortable defending pretty-much-near-universal claims about how people in Canada and the United States should (not) interact with nonhuman animals as food. I’m not a jerk about it, I hope. Each person is at a different point in their journey. But, I am fairly comfortable saying that veganism should be a goal that most of us adopt.
Why are animals the exception to my wariness about near-universal claims? I started reading to help me uncover the answer.
When Species Meet
Haraway, as you likely can guess, resists making universal claims. Her approach is contextual and relational. It begins with the ways in which humans are enmeshed in relations with others and with the world. When Species Meet opens with two questions:
(1) Whom and what do I touch when I touch my dog? And (2) How is ‘becoming with’ a practice of becoming worldly?
In answering question (1), we must recognize the animals we interact with as individuals. We come to these interactions already with presuppositions that need to be disrupted. Curiosity, touch, and care characterize what it means to meet companion animals responsibly.
In exploring question (2), we learn about how our selves and our worlds are co-created with our fellow critters. It’s worth noting that Haraway expands the notion of companion animals beyond just “pets.” Companion animals are those animals with whom we share our worlds and our world-making.
Haraway on veganism
Although Haraway expresses deep appreciation for vegan thinkers and activists (notably Carol J. Adams), she makes puzzling claims about veganism. When we meet animals, we need to confront relationships of killing. More specifically, we need to confront how certain animals are made killable. Somehow vegans do this really well, but also not well enough.
Being made killable
Here is one description of veganism:
I believe that ethical veganism, for example, enacts a necessary truth, as well as bears crucial witness to the extremity of the brutality in our “normal” relations with other animals. However, I also am convinced that multispecies coflourishing requires simultaneous, contradictory truths if we take seriously not the command that grounds human exceptionalism, “Thou shalt not kill,” but rather the command that makes us face nurturing and killing as an inescapable part of mortal companion species entanglements, namely, “Thou shalt not make killable.” There is no category that makes killing innocent; there is no category or strategy that removes one from killing. Killing sentient animals is killing someone not something. (pp. 105-106)
Okay, based on this passage it seems as Haraway suggests that it is misguided to think that a vegan practice absolves a person for the responsibility to confront “Thou shalt not make killable.” Humans cannot remove themselves from killing practices; being vegan doesn’t absolve me of the responsibility to confront the production of beings who can be killed.
Earlier, Haraway makes a similar remark about “Thou shalt not make killable”:
The problem is actually to understand that human beings do not get a pass on the necessity of killing significant others, who are themselves responding, not just reacting. In the idiom of labor, animals are working subjects, not just worked objects. Try as we might to distance ourselves, there is no way of living that is not also a way of someone, not just something, dying differentially. Vegans come as close as anyone, and their work to avoid eating or wearing any animal products would consign most domestic animals to the status of curated heritage collections or to just plain extermination as kinds and as individuals. (When Species Meet, p. 80)
Generally speaking, humans cannot remove themselves from the responsibility to meet animals as individuals, to question how living beings are made killable, how we are wrapped up in relationships of life and death.
Being curated and collected
You may wonder why I am so peeved. Actually, you may think Haraway pays vegans a complement for coming “as close as anyone” to responding to human-animal entanglements. And she does! What frustrates me is her contention that a vegan practice “would consign most domestic animals to the status of curated heritage collections or to just plain extermination as kinds and as individuals” (p. 80).
It’s true that some vegans support abolitionist positions about using animals, whether for food, fashion, science, or as companions in our home. Elsewhere in the book, Haraway argues that abolitionist positions about pets are problematic because they remove the individual from the production of culture. She prefers a methodology that begins with entanglements of relationships.
My intuitions about abolitionist positions vary in degree with respect to the particular issue. But even a strong vegan-abolitionist position would not necessarily consign animals to the status of curated collections.
Xena, the wounded warrior princess
As I type this, Xena the wounded warrior princess steals a meditation brochure and drags it underneath the cedar chest to her secret lair. She’s playing by herself. While she’s on antibiotics, she is quarantined. In their habitat, Dottie builds a pile of fluff underneath her food dispenser. Gabrielle is out of sight. She’s probably snoozing in her hut.
I would prefer a world free from breeders. (I might get intro trouble with this view when it comes to working dogs, such as rescue dogs. Let’s chat.) I would prefer a world without nonhuman animals working as clinical labourers. At this point, I wouldn’t purchase a rat from a breeder. I do worry about what might happen if one of the rats outlives the others. Rats need rat companionship to be healthy. Perhaps a breeder isn’t off the table, but I would seek a rescue companion first.
I don’t think my desire for a world with as little animal exploitation as possible makes me unable to meet Xena, Gabrielle, and Dottie with curiosity, touch, and care. However, my choice not to purchase animals from a breeders does foreclose the possibility of some relationships.
Opening up relationships
Is this what bothers Haraway about veganism? That because vegans structure their choices around certain principles relating to animals, we foreclose opportunities to engage in certain kinds of relationships?
If Haraway’s concern is about foreclosing possible relationships, it seems misplaced to me. Vegan practices are often situated in relational entanglements with all kinds of critters, humans or not. Veganism was among my reasons for adopting rats from the Human Society. They’re vegan eaters! Vegans who live with carnivorous companions often think deeply about how to minimize harm that results from those relationships. (We won’t get into the indoor/outdoor cat versus birds debate).
Yes, my choice to be vegan forecloses some kinds of relationships. But it also enables other kinds of relationships. I’ve very recently finished Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society (Lantern Books, 2010). For many of the contributors, veganism is part of an anti-racist, decolonization project. Foreclosing relationships with certain animals, then, is opening up relationships of liberation within marginalized communities. I also think about farm sanctuaries (such as the Catskill Farm Sanctuary in this week’s photo) and organizations like Toronto Pig Save, whose members give water to pigs on their way to a slaughterhouse in nearby Burlington. Surely these types of projects are contenders for responsibly meeting animals with curiosity, touch, and care–and with principles of veganism.
Making space for vegan-abolition views
I don’t want to make a claim about whether Sistah Vegan contributors or Toronto Pig Save members are strong abolitionists. I’m suggesting that I’m not convinced vegan abolitionist positions commit the error of objectifying animals. We can do both: think abolitionism is a way to confront “Thou shalt not make killable” and doesn’t preclude meeting animals in the here-and-now with curiosity, touch, and care.
Maybe I’ve been too hard on Haraway, or maybe I’ve misinterpreted her. Maybe vegans like we find in the Sistah Vegan projects are the kinds of vegans Haraway would affirm as responsible. Maybe my reluctance to give up abolitionism is a symptom of my “animal ethics exceptionalism” when it comes to (near) universal claims. In any case, When Species Meet is a fascinating, complex book! I welcome thoughts and disagreements.
A note on sources
The photo credit is Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals. To learn more about Jo-Anne’s photojournalism and We Animals, visit the archive, and support the work.
Visit the Sistah Vegan Project and support A. Breeze Harper’s critical race feminist vegan work.
Visit Toronto Pig Save‘s website to learn more about their work and to provide support.