In June 2020, I interviewed the Dutch artist, writer, philosopher and singer-songwriter, Eva Meijer – about her most recent book, When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy (2019).
Meijer’s book rejects the old idea that nonhuman animals lack language or ‘cannot speak in a way that is relevant to political action’ (Meijer 2019: 4) – focussing instead on how humans can listen to animal voices and take those voices into account as part of a movement in the direction of a new interspecies democracy.
Conducted via email, the conversation moves through a range of issues raised by the book – including the role that philosophy and the arts might play in dismantling structural anthropocentrism and humanism.
On (un)learning language with animals: avoiding anthropocentrism in animal philosophy
LCÓM: When Animals Speak addresses the question of how we avoid anthropocentrism in our approaches to doing animal philosophy. In the first part of the book, you focus particularly on the problem of how language might be redefined beyond anthropocentrism. Throughout, you make the case that: “Rethinking what language is should not be a solely human endeavour, and it is not up to humans to define what constitutes meaningful communication for others. In order not to repeat anthropocentrism, we need to learn about language in interaction with other animals” (ibid., 7 – emphasis added). You then offer your own interactions with the Romanian stray dog Olli as one possible case study of this. But can you say a bit more about how this inclusive practice of thought or learning with animals about language might manifest itself? Does it always happen in the context of individual relationships or can it happen on a larger communal level too? I also wonder whether you can see potential limits or exclusions here in terms of species who may be more difficult or impossible for humans to interact with, and/or do not want to interact with humans at all. You touch on this with respect to recognizing the sovereignty of a fallow deer population in the Netherlands (ibid., 141). What if animals do not want to participate in our efforts to learn with them not only about them? Can the emphasis on participation or collaboration end up being anthropocentric in itself?
Photo by Eva Meijer
EM: This is a really important question, and one that is interconnected with many other questions. The short answer would be: for a long time, humans – in particular those in the Western philosophical tradition – defined ‘language’ as human language. Animal scientists followed this view, and investigated nonhuman animals’ linguistic capacities by measuring how they related to human language. This could mean that animals were taught to speak in human language, as in the experiments with young chimpanzees in the early 20th century, or those with dolphins or parrots. It could also mean that scientists looked for characteristics of human speech, such as grammar or recursion, in the languages of other animals. Nowadays, there is a much larger emphasis on, and understanding of, difference. Animal languages are studied in relation to their social relations, taking into account the different modes of expression and sensory apparatuses of different animals. These studies show that human language is but one form of language – it is very elaborate, but there is much we do not know about animal languages. This raises many questions, about our relations with other animals, and about language. We need to redefine this concept, but if humans redefine it, it is again a matter of humans deciding for other animals what counts as language. So exploring forms of meaningful communication, stretching the boundaries of language (which can include scents, gestures, movements, colour) and working with this concept has to happen in interaction with other animals.
This is of course interconnected with living with animals – their space for movement and expression is currently largely determined by humans, which influences their scope for exercising agency. This brings me to the longer answer. Humans have oppressed other animals for centuries, which has influenced the material conditions under which they live – sometimes even their bodies – and the concepts we use to think about them. Challenging that requires forming new relations in which their voices and agency are centred. In the book, I argue that we should pay attention to nonhuman animal voices and create new interspecies communities with some of them – but I don’t say so much about how. I do offer some examples in the case studies I mention (the one with Olli but also in the discussion of geese, worms, deer and others). However, further conceptualization of this requires further experiments in living with other animals.
Before I turn to that, though, I want to note that - in rethinking language and community with other animals - context matters. The category ‘animals’ is a very heterogeneous group, in terms of species (sensory apparatuses, capacities, etc) and social relations. (Humans, of course, have to categorise to make sense of the world, as other animals do, but we can still do better in thinking ‘difference’. This is not just a challenge for thinking with other animals: we find similar problems in relation to human groups too).
Animal philosophy has long been focused on either individual relations (ethics) or species relations. What is interesting about the political turn in animal philosophy – most notably the work of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka – is that the focus is shifted towards social and political relations: in other words, situated relations between groups. This offers a new lens for thinking about interactions, in which concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and rights play a part. An important aspect of refiguring relations with other animals is considering or asking them if they want to be involved with humans or not. Some domesticated animals might say ‘yes’, others ‘no’; but all should have the possibility to opt out of relations (as Donaldson and Kymlicka also mention). Non-domesticated animals who live close to humans might choose a closer relation if humans start to be less violent; we do not know. The case studies I discuss in the book take place in the Netherlands, where I live. There is not a lot of space in this country, so even with wild animals who prefer to avoid humans there will still be encounters. But these should be directed at navigating boundaries, not implicating them in human learning schemes.
Photo by Eva Meijer
So, bundled up in the question of rethinking language, politics, communities, relations, etc, with other animals are the following challenges:
Investigating how animals are already actors in different concrete practices , how they communicate and what this means for how we understand ‘language’, ‘politics’ and other concepts and practices.
Creating spaces in which certain animals – the ones who desire relations with humans such as domesticated animals – can co-form what James Tully calls the ‘rules of the game’ of democracy. So they do not just take part in an already established framework but can co-shape the framework itself. Existing concepts can function as a starting point for critique.
Changing the human attitude to sharing the world with other animals: accepting the planet does not belong to us, we are not owners, and learning from/listening to the other animals to better share it with them and preserve it in a better way. This also involves staying away from certain animals and respecting their spaces / privacy / difference.
On human differences
LCÓM: Just as you say, there is ‘no such thing as the political animal voice or “the animal”’; of course, there is equally no such thing as “the human”. How do we take human differences into account – for instance, in terms of distinctive experiences of racialization, dehumanization and animalization for oppressed groups – as we rethink language and politics with other animals? I guess my question is, to what extent is “the human” under consideration here, the Western concept of “the human” and specifically a figure of whiteness? Perhaps related to this – I wonder if we can also draw from wider, global traditions of thinking to support the project you are outlining here: traditions where, perhaps, animals have not been excluded from concepts of language, subjectivity, agency and so forth, or at least not to the same extent as in Western culture. Have other traditions of thinking with animals, beyond Western philosophy, informed your thinking at all?
EM: When Animals Speak engages with, or critically responds to, a specific cultural human tradition: Western philosophy. It does discuss other cultures and epistemologies, most notably nonhuman animal ones, but does not explore non-western human thinking in detail. In Chapter 1, I reconstruct how a specific image of the human has been constructed in relation to logos, rationally informed speech, in that tradition. This image not only excludes other animals but also many human groups, leading to violence towards these groups. Feminist and decolonial texts and insights have influenced the method of this book, as well as the views on speaking for others, language, silence and political agency that I present in the book. The main question of this book is however not which human ontology, epistemology or culture is best suited for thinking about or with animals, or how different forms of oppression have been and are interconnected, even though I discuss the latter question here and there in the book. Those interested in intersectionality can for example read Aphro-Ism by Aph and Syl Ko about the interconnections between constructions of race and animality, the work of Claire Jean Kim on how to think about interconnected oppressions, Sunaura Taylor on animality and disability, and of course Carol Adams on women and animals.
Photo by Eva Meijer
On ethics & politics
LCÓM: I wondered if we could talk a bit about the relationship between ethics and politics in relation to non-human animals. When Animals Speak seems very clearly framed as a book concerned with animal politics: specifically “political animal voices”. Am I right in sensing a certain dissatisfaction with animal ethics in your work; a view of animal ethics as somehow limited; and a call for a move away from the ethical consideration of animals towards a focus on their political participation? You do acknowledge – early on that ‘Animal ethics has, at least since the work of Peter Singer (1975) and Tom Regan (1983), always been a political project because it challenges the borders of the moral community and focuses on non-human animal rights’ (ibid. 4). But is there a new distinction you want to draw here between recent work about animals in political philosophy and contemporary animal ethics?
EM: In animal studies we are currently witnessing a turn towards viewing nonhuman animals as subjects, or actors, or beings with their own perspective on life. In the philosophical tradition animals have long played a marginal role. The works in animal ethics you mention mostly regarded them as victims. The discussion focused mostly on human duties towards other animals, and not on their views about this. This move tends to reinforce unequal power relations – while it recognizes other animals as sentient beings, it does not challenge the view that humans are the ones who know best when it comes to animal rights. This is problematic because other animals have a unique perspective on their life, and have their own ideas about the good life. Furthermore, the emphasis in animal ethics has long been on negative rights – the rights that safeguard you from interference of others. While these are extremely important, we also need to investigate how relations can be transformed, how animals think about this, and so on. As I mentioned before, this requires a radical rethinking of practices and concepts. The political turn also has other advantages. It opens a new toolbox of concepts for rethinking relations, for example with investigating how understandings of democracy, citizenship, political agency and so on can play a role in relations between groups of animals and human political communities. And existing political practices and institutions can and should be expanded to include the interests of other animals. But in my project, the focus on political animal agency (on the individual level and the group level) is the most important benefit of turning to politics.
Photo by Eva Meijer
On art & philosophy
LCÓM: How do you see the relationship between your artistic and philosophical work? You mention the other drawings, writing and photography that you did with the Romanian stray dog you live with, Olli – alongside using your relationship with him as a case study for philosophical exploration in When Animals Speak. To what extent do these practices offer shared or distinctive ways to think with Olli and understand your relationship to him? To what extent has Olli re-shaped your understanding of what ‘art’ and ‘philosophy’ are or changed your concept of those practices?
EM: In 2013, I was accepted as a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam. I was working as a visual artist and musician at the time and had published my first novel. This job meant financial security for four years, which meant that I could adopt a dog friend for my canine companion Pika. There was an emergency ongoing for the stray dogs in Romania at that time, and I decided to adopt a Romanian dog. Olli came to live with us a few months after I began writing the PhD and after some time it struck me that he and I were doing what I was writing about: developing a common language, using body language, words, material devices such as the dog harness and leash. Pika and he understood one another much better of course, and she sometimes functioned as a translator/interpreter. So I decided to write a paper about it which then turned into a chapter in the book. He was a grown adult when he came to live with me, who had lived on the streets for a few years and then in a shelter. I learned and still learn a lot from him – about language and politics and living. Centring his perspective and that of my other companions provides a different perspective on the world.
I do not think there is a straightforward relation between my artistic and philosophical work. I do many different things. Some of them include interspecies collaborations – I did a performance with Pika once, where she led me on the leash, and wrote about the holes that Olli digs as a form of art. But much of my art and music and novels deal with other subjects, such as language, death, metamorphosis, freedom, loneliness; the basic stuff. In fact, in some of my novels, such as Bird Cottage, the story seems to be about animals or the human-animal relationship but that is just a superficial reading of the book, underneath that theme one finds other themes. The art I make changes me as much as the animal companions with whom I live. I do not have or desire a lot of control about that and see myself mostly as a vessel for creating things.
Photo by Eva Meijer
Between the micro & macro, individuals & institutionalized speciesism
LCÓM: You touch on how the tensions between micro and macro politics play out in terms of your relationship with Olli – with the need to have him on a lead, for example, in order to abide by Dutch law despite the ambivalent effect this might have on his power to express agency. At the same time, you also emphasise the importance of not just seeking to include animals within existing human political structures, but working with them to change the structures themselves (ibid.,114-6). In the final chapter of the book, you also address the problems of looking at expressions of non-human animal agency in individual relationships, but without addressing their relationship to institutionalized speciesism (ibid., 219-220). So, can you say a bit more about how you think about, experience or practically negotiate this tension between (what we might call) complicity in existing frameworks and the need for radical or structural change? How do you see the relationship between the micropolitics of individual human-nonhuman animal relationships and the dismantling of structural anthropocentrism and humanism?
EM: As a follow up to the paper I wrote about Olli, I wrote about our experiences with our new companion Doris, who is also from Romania. She suffered from fear-aggression when she came to live with us, which means that she growls or barks when humans come too close. While this is partly because of traumatic experiences and I discuss the role that trust and education can play here. But it also draws attention to how the larger structures of society determine the options nonhuman animals have to express themselves. Humans feel entitled to touch them for example, and the legal and material conditions are such that they cannot choose to leave situations that are frightening or harmful. The micropolitics of individual human-nonhuman animal relationships and dismantling structural anthropocentrism and humanism are intertwined in many ways.
In order to address this we need to work from different directions. We need advocacy, political change (in the Netherlands, The Party for the Animals does good work), epistemic change (in universities and culture), and cultural change. It is important to engage with actual animals in these processes because our views of them, including what we feel is their opinion on the good life, are shaped by centuries of oppression and are often based on stereotypes. Recent studies in animal sanctuaries (Blattner, Donaldson, Willcox 2020) are a good example of how animal agency can inform working towards better societies. But we also really need humans to change their attitudes. There is a lot of work to be done.
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1 In my own work, I’ve also been trying to think about how we include animals in the process of rethinking or redefining concepts we apply to them – in particular, with respect to the concept of ‘performance’, which has also been constructed and used (in some contexts) to reinforce human exceptionalism (Cull 2015). I’m very interested in the field of power relations in which concept creation (acts of definition, expansion, mutation etc.) take place and how performance and philosophy might intervene to deflate the operation of anthropocentrism in this domain. In fact, drawing from François Laruelle, I’ve been interested in the idea of this as a practice of ‘indefinition’ rather than redefinition.