What is Animals in the Room?

Begun during the pandemic, ‘Animals in the Room’ is an international collaboration of philosophers, scientists, and animal welfare specialists working together to devise and test models for representing non-human animals in decision-making. Crucially, this representation is founded on working with the animals. When we recognize the dignity of other species and the ability of animals to act for and communicate their interests, this then calls for their fair representation in a democracy. We seek to establish how best to do this.

Getting animals a seat at the table
and getting animals heard is revolutionary. It’s never been done.

And yet the idea that those who are affected by policy decisions should have some say over those decisions is a tried and tested principle of democratic theory and practice for centuries, if not millennia.

– Alasdair Cochrane

Getting animals a seat at the table
and getting animals heard is revolutionary.
It’s never been done.

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AiR_spotlight_pol_sq

And yet the idea that those who are affected by policy decisions should have some say over those decisions is a tried and tested principle of democratic theory and practice for centuries, if not millennia.

– Alasdair Cochrane

Summary of Key Concepts

REPRESENTING NON-HUMAN ANIMALS
'POLITICAL LISTENING'
HOW & WHEN OF REPRESENTING OTHER SPECIES
THE LANGUAGE CHALLENGE
TRAINED HUMAN REPRESENTATIVES
CULTURAL NUANCES
WHO IS ANIMALS IN THE ROOM?
REPRESENTING NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

The question of how we represent non-human animals is now urgent, not only because of the biodiversity crisis and the consequences of climate change on the balance of life on Earth, but also in response to One Health approaches to global health in the wake of the pandemic. Human residents of our communities have many, well-established methods of political and legal representation to ensure our interests are sufficiently present when life-altering decisions are made. But there is no such recognition for other animals. We seek to address this imbalance.

In the 1960s, political philosopher Hanna Pitkin wrote that to ‘represent’ those who might be marginalized or ignored within a community is fundamentally to “make [them] present again.” By her definition, representation in this political sense makes the voices, perspectives, and interests of the less visible members of a community present in the decision-making spaces where they are otherwise absent.

'POLITICAL LISTENING'
In recent years, philosophers and social scientists have focused on democratic process and on forms of ‘political listening’ that encourage us to pay attention to the voices of those that will be affected by major decisions. ‘Animals in the Room’ is the first project to attempt to bring these ideas into practice. Our founding principle is that for a process to be just, the non-humans who will be affected by our decisions, laws, or policies should be recognized and listened to within that process. On this basis, we seek to establish whether listening to other species, through proxy forms of testimony, will ensure a fairer process with more just outcomes.
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HOW & WHEN OF REPRESENTING OTHER SPECIES
Our group and collaborators trial representations in different contexts where decisions are being made. Through these trials, we will gain valuable insights into the specifics of ‘how’ and ‘when’ we should represent other species. We will also test empirically the impacts on decision-making in science, industry, deliberative, and community settings.
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THE LANGUAGE CHALLENGE
Much of the work of our project will focus on who will represent the voices of non-human animals, what the content of such representations might be, and how they work in context. One difficulty is that our current decision-making systems are designed around human language. To overcome that language hurdle, one of the principles of our work is to allow other animals to define their own good. This requires of us to recognize that animals can speak for themselves and that they can determine what’s in their best interests.
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TRAINED HUMAN REPRESENTATIVES
Allowing animals to speak for themselves means bringing them into the room and into deliberations by proxy. For this, we must ‘re-present’ the testimonies and interests of non-human animals by relying on image, video, and audio files as forms of testimony. A just process must ensure the right people interpret these testimonies in the best way, without any conflicts of interest. Any representations will have been co-created with the species in question through listening and close contact. The human representatives should be specially trained and specially mandated to live with, communicate with, listen to, and put forward the preferences and desires of animals.
CULTURAL NUANCES
Another priority is to evaluate what these models of representation might look like in different regions and cultures. It is important to frame dialogues in terms that are sensitive to cultural nuance. Sensitivity to and knowledge of the specific landscapes in which human politics play out will be essential to the success of the project. Likewise, we will listen to different communities with distinct lived experiences with non-human animals, especially by engaging members of Indigenous communities with traditional ecological knowledge. Not all interests are aligned, of course. And so, the preferences of animals will have to be balanced against other interests. But that is why mediated dialogue is so important.
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Fundamentally, once animals are empowered to speak for themselves, they become subjects of justice in a more just world.

Who are Animals in the Room?

“Procedural justice requires that in a democratic community everybody that is going to be affected by a law or action – the ‘all affected principle’ – has to be included in the construction of that law, however we end up instituting that.”

Danielle

Celermajer

Professor of Sociology, University of Sydney, Australia

“It is vital we attempt to listen to non-human animals in situations in which we are making choices and decisions that cause significant harm or transformation to their lives. The function of this listening is to recognize any ‘political’ signals that might emerge from the voices or behaviours of non-human agents.”

Melanie

Challenger

Writer and ethicist, RSPCA and Nuffield Council, UK

“Think about public transport or public health. All of these things affect animals in profound ways. If they’re being affected, then animals matter politically to some extent. More substantively, we might say if our policies govern them or change the way they behave, then they should also matter.”

Alasdair

Cochrane

Professor of Political Theory, University of Sheffield, UK

“It is vital we attempt to listen to non-human animals in situations in which we are making choices and decisions that cause significant harm or transformation to their lives. The function of this listening is to recognize any ‘political’ signals that might emerge from the voices or behaviours of non-human agents.”

Melanie

Challenger

Writer and ethicist, Nuffield Council on Bioethics & RSPCA, UK

“Think about public transport or public health. All of these things affect animals in profound ways. If they’re being affected, then animals matter politically to some extent. More substantively, we might say if our policies govern them or change the way they behave, then they should also matter.”

Alasdair

Cochrane

Professor of Political Theory, University of Sheffield, UK

"Necesitamos reinventar nuestras prácticas e instituciones políticas de manera que las múltiples formas de vida que coexisten en nuestras comunidades, cada una con sus propios matices y particularidades, sean genuinamente escuchadas y respetadas. Esto es algo que nos debemos a nosotros mismos y a otros animales."

Alfonso

Donoso

Associate Professor of Political Philosophy, Pontifical Catholic University, Chile

“Up to now, in animal welfare and rights, we’ve had good intentions, but if we don’t make a serious move to have animals speak for themselves, then we risk asking the wrong questions.”

Becca

Franks

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, New York University, USA

“Unfortunately, many of today's representatives of wild animals ultimately speak for their own human interests. Animals ought to be at the table not as our food but as moral equals with their interests and dignity  considered authentically in all our actions and policies that affect them.”

Julius

Kapembwa

Lecturer of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, University of Zambia, Zambia

“Procedural justice requires that in a democratic community everybody that is going to be affected by a law or action – the ‘all affected principle’ – has to be included in the construction of that law, however we end up instituting that.”

Danielle

Celermajer

Professor of Sociology, University of Sydney, Australia

“We need to reimagine our political practices and institutions so that the multiplicity of life forms co-existing in our communities, each with their own nuances and particularities, are genuinely listened to and respected. This is something we owe both to humans and other animals.”

Alfonso

Donoso

Associate Professor of Political Philosophy, Pontifical Catholic University, Chile

Lucy

Parry

Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, UK/Aus

“What we do every day affects billions of animals, yet we are blinded by the way that we’re conducting the decision-making. We say we’re doing it on behalf of animals without acknowledging them or letting them have any say in it.”

Erin

Ryan

Animal Welfare Scientist, University of British Columbia, Canada

“There’s a failure of imagination. We haven’t done the hard work of trying to understand what is really important for those animals and taking those decisions seriously.”

Dan

Weary

Professor of Animal Welfare Program, University of British Columbia, Canada

“Up to now, in animal welfare and rights, we’ve had good intentions, but if we don’t make a serious move to have animals speak for themselves, then we risk asking the wrong questions.”

Becca

Franks

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, New York University, USA

“Unfortunately, many of today's representatives of wild animals ultimately speak for their own human interests. Animals ought to be at the table not as our food but as moral equals with their interests and dignity  considered authentically in all our actions and policies that affect them.”

Julius

Kapembwa

Lecturer of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, University of Zambia, Zambia

Lucy

Parry

Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, UK/Aus

“What we do every day affects billions of animals, yet we are blinded by the way that we’re conducting the decision-making. We say we’re doing it on behalf of animals without acknowledging them or letting them have any say in it.”

Erin

Ryan

Animal Welfare Scientist, University of British Columbia, Canada

“The first thing we have to do is de-genericize non-human life and listen to the vast differences between a bottlenose dolphin and dog. The science shows that the more we learn by listening about these creatures the more the heterogeneity of the non-human world has just exploded before our very eyes.”

Cary

Wolfe

Founding Editor, Posthumanities series, University of Minnesota Press, USA

“There’s a failure of imagination. We haven’t done the hard work of trying to understand what is really important for those animals and taking those decisions seriously.”

Dan

Weary

Professor of Animal Welfare Program, University of British Columbia, Canada

“The first thing we have to do is de-genericize non-human life and listen to the vast differences between a bottlenose dolphin and dog. The science shows that the more we learn by listening about these creatures the more the heterogeneity of the non-human world has just exploded before our very eyes.”

Cary

Wolfe

Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English, Rice University, USA

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