The War Against Animals

Human domination of animals has a continuing and catastrophic somatechnic effect across the globe for non-human entities. Utilising recent contemporary continental approaches from Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, this article argues that this continuing violence might be positioned within the context of war, sovereignty and biopolitics, where the civil political space hides forms of intense domination of animal life, through apparatuses that do not, at least on the outside, betray the form of war. In contrast to welfare and rights approaches which have the potential not to challenge the fundamental human right to dominate non-human life, it is argued that recognition of animal sovereignties provides a potential platform by which to address human violence against non-human animals.