From mute objects to militant subjects

the politics of rebellious animals

Cohen

pp. 237-263

in: Andreas Oberprantacher, Andrei Siclodi (eds), Subjectivation in political theory and contemporary practices, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

Dominant animal rights discourse fails to analyze the boundary of the political community as marked by a historical division between logical animals (humans) and phonic animals (nonhumans). In so doing, this discourse merely enables nonhumans to become mute objects of representation rather than subjects of speech, maintaining the exclusion of animals from the political community of speaking subjects. Eschewing moral approaches to the political problem of exclusion, Cohen demonstrates that the work of radical democrats provides a political lens with which to approach nonhuman subjectivity and speech. By exploring three episodes of nonhuman resistance, Cohen argues that a radical democratic framework illuminates how nonhuman animals actively oppose their exclusion from the political community, thus transforming nonhumans from objects of political deliberation into subjects of politics.