White Supremacy, Animal Advocacy, and the Longue Durée of Misanthropy

Please note: This event has been rescheduled to Wednesday, November 29, at 4:00 p.m. We regret any inconvenience.

The Human Context of Science and Technology program lecture, part of the Fall 2023 Social Sciences Forum, presents Juno Salazar Parreñas, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Cornell University, who will speak on White Supremacy, Animal Advocacy, and the Longue Durée of Misanthropy.

Inspired by Aisha M. Belisa-de Jesús and Jemima Pierre’s challenge to pursue an anthropology of white supremacy and Lesley Green’s decolonial ecopolitics in South Africa, this talk engages the racialized and gendered dynamics of animal advocacy in South Africa and on Borneo in present-day Malaysia as a way to consider how animals are instrumentalized in projects of white innocence and white supremacy. In South Africa, ex-circus lions from Latin America, Middle East, and Eastern Europe have been repatriated to white-owned properties. In Malaysia, wildlife centers harbor displaced orangutans and their operations depend on both commercialized volunteering efforts and local low-wage labor. Comparing these two sites offers a way to think about race and racism by thinking about animals.

Admission is free.

Organized by the Human Context of Science and Technology program. Cosponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health, and the Center for Social Science Scholarship. Additional cosponsors to be determined.

Photo by Allison Usavage.