Carceral veganism relies on and perpetuates a surveillance and detention framework to “solve” systemic issues connected to animal cruelty. Instead of going after Big Ag, carceral vegans target marginalized factory farm workers, collaborating with the police state and pushing for human confinement to relieve the confinement of chickens, pigs, cows, and other “farmed” animals. This does nothing but play into systems of domination that oppress people and nonhuman animals alike while endangering our shared environment.
Lori Gruen (presenter) is a leading scholar in Animal Studies and Feminist Philosophy. She is the author and editor of 10 books, including Ethics and Animals: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2011), Critical Terms for Animal Studies (Chicago, 2018), Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics (Oxford, 2012), Ethics of Captivity (Oxford, 2014), and Entangled Empathy (Lantern, 2015). Her work in practical ethics and political philosophy focuses on issues that impact those often overlooked in traditional ethical investigations, e.g. women, people of color, incarcerated people, and non-human animals.
Leah Kirts (presenter) is a writer covering food, labor and queerness. Her chapter, “Toward An Anti-Carceral Queer Veganism” was recently published in Queer and Trans Voices: Achieving Liberation Through Consistent Anti-Oppression from Sanctuary Publishers. She is from rural Indiana and based in Queens, NY.
Justin F. Marceau (presenter) is Professor of Law and the Brooks Institute Faculty Research Scholar of Animal Law and Policy. He serves as the reporter for the pattern criminal jury instruction committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and as an inaugural member of the animal welfare committee (PAW) formed by a proclamation of the Governor of Colorado to advise the First Gentleman on strategies for improving the protection of animals in Colorado. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Justice for Animals Award and the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar’s Gideon Award.
William Horne (moderator) is an Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Fellow at Villanova University who writes about the relationship of race to labor, freedom, and capitalism in post-Civil War Louisiana. His book manuscript, “The Birth of Mass Incarceration: Reconstructing the Carceral State in Civil War Era Louisiana” argues that white elites repurposed antebellum systems of plunder that had been applied broadly to poor and working-class folk to exclusively target African Americans after emancipation. He holds a PhD in history from The George Washington University and is co-founder and Editor of The Activist History Review.
Further Reading
Bénédicte Boisseron, Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question (Columbia University Press, 2018).
Julia Feliz Brueck and Zoie Zane McNeill, eds., Queer and Trans Voices: Achieving Liberation Through Consistent Anti-Oppression (Sanctuary Publishers, 2020).
Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Haymarket, 2015).
Brigitte Fielder, “Why Animal Studies Must Be Antiracist: A Conversation with Bénédicte Boisseron,” Edge Effects, March 26, 2019.
Lori Gruen, Critical Terms for Animal Studies (University of Chicago Press, 2018).
—————, ed., The Ethics of Captivity (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Claire Jean Kim, Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Aph Ko, Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out (Lantern Books, 2019).
Justin Marceau, Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith, eds., Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex (AK Press, 2015).
Sunaura Taylor, Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation (The New Press, 2017).
Image created by Maria Martelli for her article “The Sandwich Circle: How Animals Enter Our Lives And Other Possibilities,” April 10, 2020, The Activist History Review.
The Activist History Review 
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