In the context of global environmental politics (GEP), human–nonhuman animal relationships are filled with a myriad of tensions. There is widespread species loss, from charismatic animals such as right whales and northern white rhinos to less attractive animals such as dung beetles. At the same time, billions of animals are purposefully raised to be killed and consumed as part of the industrial food system, and we are left with a legacy of “ghosts and things,” with staggering implications for the environment (Weis 2018). Human–animal interactions are further complicated by COVID-19 and the deadly pandemic that is an outcome of zoonotic transmission (World Health Organization 2020). Animals are threatened by humans, and at the same time, human–animal interactions are seemingly becoming risky to humans. Animals intersect with a number of challenges in global environmental politics, from declining biodiversity and habitat loss to the climate emergency and industrial agriculture. The...
Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death
Sarah J. Martin specializes in the global political economy of food and agriculture. Her prior work as a cook and meat cutter in a variety of settings from cafeterias to high-end restaurants to remote logging camps led to an interest in how food politics is practiced in the everyday world. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, where she researches the dynamics of food, feed, and fuel in relation to environmental politics, She co-edited (with Ryan Katz-Rosene) Green Meat: Sustaining Animals, People and the Planet (McGill-Queen’s University Press), 2020.
Sarah J. Martin specializes in the global political economy of food and agriculture. Her prior work as a cook and meat cutter in a variety of settings from cafeterias to high-end restaurants to remote logging camps led to an interest in how food politics is practiced in the everyday world. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, where she researches the dynamics of food, feed, and fuel in relation to environmental politics, She co-edited (with Ryan Katz-Rosene) Green Meat: Sustaining Animals, People and the Planet (McGill-Queen’s University Press), 2020.
Sarah J. Martin; Animals: Hierarchies of Life and Death. Global Environmental Politics 2021; 21 (2): 159–164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00600
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