The Promise of Multispecies Justice

by Sophie Chao (Editor), Karin Bolender (Editor), Eben Kirksey (Editor)

What are the possibilities for multispecies justice? How do social justice struggles intersect with the lives of animals, plants, and other creatures? Leading thinkers in anthropology, geography, philosophy, speculative fiction, poetry, and contemporary art answer these questions from diverse grounded locations. In America, Indigenous peoples and prisoners are decolonizing multispecies relations in unceded territory and carceral landscapes. Small justices are emerging in Tanzanian markets, near banana plantations in the Philippines, and in abandoned buildings of Azerbaijan as people navigate relations with feral dogs, weeds, rats, and pesticides. Conflicts over rights of nature are intensifying in Colombia’s Amazon. Specters of justice are emerging in India, while children in Micronesia memorialize extinct bird species. Engaging with ideas about environmental justice, restorative justice, and other species of justice, The Promise of Multispecies Justice holds open the possibility of flourishing in multispecies worlds, present and to come.

Contributors. Karin Bolender, Sophie Chao, M. L. Clark, Radhika Govindrajan, Zsuzsanna Dominika Ihar, Noriko Ishiyama, Eben Kirksey, Elizabeth Lara, Jia Hui Lee, Kristina Lyons, Michael Marder, Alyssa Paredes, Craig Santos Perez, Kim TallBear

Genres: Nonfiction, Ecology

296 pages, Hardcover

Published October 7, 2022

Reviews

[Gabby R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would probably give this book 4.5/5. Great compilation of chapters and writers although it is somewhat dense with theoretical concepts. My favourite chapter was written by Govindrajan. The poems by Perez are fantastic - creative and meaningful ways to break up the text.

I found the whole concept of multispecies justice intriguing, although quite similar to other theoretical concepts in the field. I would recommend this book to scholars and ethnographers interested in animal, environment, and multispecies studies.

[Peyton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful job pushing the boundary on how we frame environmental / social activism. The essay We Are Not Pests suggests they are one and the same.