Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?

an excellent, rich, and engaging collection

Luigi Lonardo in Journal of Applied Philosophy

Is animal labour inherently oppressive, or can work be a source of meaning, solidarity, and social membership for animals? This challenging question drives this thought-provoking collection which explores the possibilities and complexities of animal labour as a site for interspecies justice. The book assembles an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars who carefully grapple with the many facets, implications, and entanglements of animal labour, and who, crucially, place animals at the heart of their analyses. Can animals engage in good work and have humane jobs? What kinds of labour rights are appropriate for animal workers? Can animals consent to work? Would recognizing animals as workers improve their legal and political status, or simply reinforce the perception that they are beasts of burden? Can a focus on labour help to create or deepen bonds between animal advocates and other social justice movements? While the authors present a range of views on these questions, their contributions make clear that labour must be taken seriously by everyone interested in more just and ethical multispecies futures.

a major addition to the literature in animal studies… Animal Labour will be of interest to a wide range of scholars across the social sciences and the humanities. Normative political theorists focused on justice; critical political theorists interested in alienation under capitalism; moral and political philosophers working on animal ethics; social scientists focusing on labor and political economy, as well as scholars in the environmental humanities and conservation studies will surely be challenged and instructed by this fine collection of essays by leading, and emerging, scholars in the vibrant field of animal studies.

Diego Rossello in Perspectives on Politics

Table of Contents

1. Animal Labour and the Quest for Interspecies Justice, Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter and Will Kymlicka

• Part I. The Promise of Good Work

2. Toward Humane Jobs and Work-Lives for Animals, Kendra Coulter
3. Good Work for Animals, Alasdair Cochrane
4. Conservation Canines: Exploring Dog Roles, Circumstances and Welfare Status, Renée D'Souza, Alice Hovorka and Lee Niel

• Part II: The Dilemmas of Animal Labour

5. Animal Labour: Toward a Prohibition on Forced Labour and a Right to Freely, Charlotte Blattner
6. Alienation and Animal Labour, Omar Bachour
7. Down on the Farm: Status, Exploitation and Agricultural Exceptionalism, Jessica Eisen
8. The Meaning of Animal Work, Nicolas Delon
9. The Working Day: Animals, Capitalism and Surplus Time, Dinesh J. Wadiwel
10. Animal Labour in a Post-work Society, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka