Transformative Interspecies Justice Workshop

Wild Rats by anatolypareev (Shutterstock)

Update: the workshop is postponed because of Covid-19 (no date set yet).

The APPLE research group will be hosting a two-day workshop on “Transformative Interspecies Justice” here at Queen’s University in Kingston on June 12-13, 2020, co-organized by Julia Gibson and Will Kymlicka. We will explore projects from those working in animal ethics, animal politics, environmental ethics, animal studies, feminist philosophy, food justice, decolonial justice, Indigenous philosophy, and other discourses grappling with what it means to pursue justice for and within multi-species contexts and communities.

Any account of interspecies justice will tell us something about how we should interact with other species, but we are hoping that “transformative” approaches will reflect critically on broader questions about how we live on this planet, including: What is the role of interspecies relationships in shaping the nature of our society, politics and the economy? How is the struggle for interspecies justice connected and accountable to broader struggles for social and environmental justice? What are our obligations both to the past and the future, and how can we combine questions of reparative/restorative justice with imaginings of alternative futures, utopian or otherwise?

Transformative interspecies justice, in short, invites us, not just to change how we treat a particular species of beings, but to rethink our identities, relationships, affiliations, and practices more generally. However, since what it means for injustice to be an interspecies affair can be interpreted in any number of ways along scales both sprawling and intimate, recommendations for transforming these politics are sure to be immensely varied as well. It is this exciting confluence and plurality that our workshop aims to cultivate and bring into closer conversation.

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Charlotte Blattner (Law, University of Berne)
  • Maneesha Deckha (Law, University of Victoria)
  • Julia Gibson (Philosophy, Queen’s University)
  • Lori Gruen (Philosophy, Wesleyan)  
  • Audra Mitchell (Canada Research Chair in Global Political Ecology, Wilfrid Laurier University)
  • Kelly Struthers Montford (Sociology, University of British Columbia)
  • Rebekah Sinclair (Philosophy, University of Oregon)

The workshop is free, but space is limited. If you are interested in attending, please contact the co-organizers (Julia Gibson jdg5@queensu.ca or Will Kymlicka kymlicka@queensu.ca).