A Political Theory of Accessibility and Care for Animals

Abstract

Care, I argue, is where and how animals most commonly experience political agency as an accessibility issue within their relationships and interactions with humans. Yet animal care is not usually viewed as animal politics, resulting in a failure to critically evaluate the nature of the politics that we do when caring for animals. I argue that animal care is a political institution because how it is organized and by whom determines needs interpretation and decision-making processes. Rather than treating animals as passive recipients of care and thus also politics, I put forth an account of how dialogical caregiving can make joint democratic politics accessible for humans and animals. This dissertation applies care ethics and disability theory to the political agency debate about animals to show how the institution of animal care can be democratized. Its aim is twofold: (1) to crip the political agency debate, and (2) to introduce a care turn in animal politics. I propose reframing political agency as an accessibility issue for animals and addressing it in care relations through dialogical caregiving practices. I draw on disability and care theory to answer the normative questions of whose responsibility it is to enable the political agency of animals and what this obligation concretely entails.