Education as the Domestication of Inner Space

From back cover:

“We are taught since early childhood that everything in the world exists in a food chain as a “resource” to be consumed by those higher up the chain and concurrently as the consumer of “resources” that are lower in this predatory hierarchy. We are also told that life in the wild is hungry, fraught with mortal danger and that civilization has spared us a short and brutish existence. As children, we thus come to believe that life in civilization is good for us, in fact even indispensable for our very survival…”

“…Since civilization is rooted in the appropriation of food and “natural resources” as well as of slave labour (dogs, horses, cows, women, miners, farmers, et al), all of our institutions today inadvertently cater to these constructs and the needs that have been generated by this monocultural perspective. That is why every contemporary institution or company has a department of “human resources” and is thereby linked to managing, killing, and protecting the ownership of “natural” and other resources.

Hence, everything, including humans, became “professionalized” and thus divided into gendered, ethnic, racial, and other categories specializing in specific spheres of labour thereby falling into defined niches of the “food chain”. Language reflects these categories and naturalizes oppression. For instance, in European languages, humanity is conflated with maleness. The word “woman” allows us to unconsciously accept that womanhood entails an aspect of humanness which erases our (female) animality thereby excluding the depersonified nonhuman animals from the privileges accorded to some animals (a small group of primates) by belonging to “humanity”. Moreover, by separating these categories of humanity, animality, femaleness, maleness, race, ethnicity, et al., language veils the racist, speciesist, and patriarchal essence of civilization where human and nonhuman women have been relegated to a class specializing in the production of human and nonhuman resources.”

Education As The Domestication of Inner Space pdf

Toward Terra Incognita: A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing

“I feel nationalism has escaped the grave long enough. With this text I seek to instigate and encourage an anti-authoritarian flame that once and for all sets fire to its anarcho-confused, stumbling corpse. I also encourage anarchists to question the notion of any said thing belonging exclusively to any said culture, to question the notion that every individual identifying with said culture claims to own it, and to question the authority of whoever it is making universal claims on behalf of others in the first place.

I say normalize dreadlocks across all racial categories; rebel against work – especially the type of work that seeks to conform us to beauty standards of marketing and production! I say dismantle white supremacy by making whiteness as insubordinate to colonial order as every black and brown youth who light up precincts like bonfires to freedom!

I propose an anarchy that moves beyond the politics of embracing assigned identity, toward de-territorializing one’s body and destroying identity-based occupation all together. At the intersection of anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian praxis is a nihilist critique of any and all cultural ownership of one’s body, becoming a dangerous space of terra incognita.”

Toward Terra Incognita_A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing pdf

Animal Bodies, Colonial Subjects: (Re)Locating Animality in Decolonial Thought

From back cover:

“I suggest that the recognition of animals as colonial subjects has been absent from Indigenous Studies. That is, contemporary decolonial thought has yet to engage with a politics of animality that not only recalls “traditional” and/or “ceremonial” human-animal relations, but is also accountable to animal subjectivities and futurities outside settler colonialism and within a project of decolonization. That is, decolonial thought cannot, for example, demand the repatriation of land as an ecofeminist praxis while simultaneously advocating for hunting as a recreational activity precisely because hunting has been weaponized as speciesism to normalize the killability of animals for human ends. Here, I propose a re-centering of animality through Indigenous cosmologies and epistemologies (specifically Mi’kmaq and Cree) to propose a decolonial animal ethic. […]

Several of the recommendations proposed by the animal liberation movement are thus applicable to decolonization. For example, rejecting animal experimentation, disrupting the commodification of animal bodies, and abolishing animal agriculture are gestures that can be deployed as anti-colonial gestures that reify decolonial futurities insofar as these forms of knowledge production, capitalism, and food culture sustain the settler state.[…]

…settler colonialism wants to produce animal bodies as commodities embedded in a global economy of reiterated deathliness. Said different, animal bodies that are inserted into capitalist spaces of commodity production are always already scheduled for death to be consumed as meat, clothing, scientific data, and so forth.[…]

Similar to the ways in which Indigenous peoples can undergo a violent process through which we rid our colonial mentalities, I argue that animals can be liberated from their colonized subjecthood through an aided “process of desubjectification”. That is, thinking through animality as an infrastructure of decolonization re-positions animal bodies as agents of anti-colonial resurgence.They can consequently engender “forms of energy that are capable of engaging the forces that keep [Indigenous people and animals] tied to [a] colonial mentality and reality”. Settler colonialism has therefore required the normalization of speciesism within Indigenous communities to obfuscate the radicality of Indigenous-animal relations. In that sense, recalling the representation of animals in Indigenous cosmologies/oral traditions and unsettling speciesism as a “colonial mentality” must be prioritized in decolonial thought.[…]

Animal Bodies, Colonial Subjects_(Re)Locating Animality in Decolonial Thought pdf

Veganism as Anti-Colonial Praxis: A Collection of Indigenous Vegan Perspectives

From back cover:

“Despite the absorption of veganism by the capitalist market – a process that admittingly reinforces pre-existing divisions across class and racial lines – a vegan lifestyle taken to its logical conclusion is fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-colonial. By (re)acknowledging sentience and personalities within the bodies of colonized (animal) subjects, a vegan lifestyle rejects authoritarian relationships based on disrespect for the bodily autonomy of those whose lives have been re-purposed for human supremacist consumption.

This small collection of shared experiences, while reflective of a larger anti-colonial struggle, highlights the inclusion of an anti-speciesist, animal liberation.”

Veganism as Anti-Colonial Praxis_A Collection of Indigenous Vegan Perspectives pdf

Kaimangatanga: Māori Perspectives on Veganism and Plant-based Kai

From back cover:

““To adopt a form of veganism – a plant-based lifestyle and ethics – that acknowledges, is based upon, and celebrates Te Ao Māori, is a break from the dominant and from the status quo and but also an act of decolonialism. It is a way to reclaim sovereignty and exercise individual choice.

And finally, it is a means by which collective power and community may be built; this is evident in the existence of online forums and comment threads on Māori-based vegan and plant- based social media accounts.

Discussions regarding the intersections of vegan ethics, Indigeneity and Māoritanga and ideas about plant-based kai, and kaimangatanga are already occurring within Māori families and communities and the outcomes and possiblities that arise from this kōrero are potent and unique. There are karakia or prayers that refer to the sustenance provided by plant-based kai, and waiata (songs) which are based upon the care and protection of animal species and the environment. There are also resources and recipes for ‘veganizing’ traditional foods such as hangi (food cooked in the earth), and boil-up (a popular meat-based dish which usually includes plants such as pūha [sowthistle], potatoes, and watercress).”

Kaimangatanga_ Maori Perspectives on Veganism and Plant-based Kai pdf

DISSENT FROM WITHIN: The Hidden Story of the Anti-Whaling Members of the Makah Tribe

From back cover:

“This zine was put together not only to honor the memory of Mahak whale protector Alberta Nora Thomspson, but also to commemorate the story of resistance surrounding the Makah anti-whaling warriors whose very existence has been (intentionally) hidden from the world. Their dissenting voices silenced by the powers of intimidation, patriarchy, and a capitalist pursuit disguised as “traditional hunting”. For many outside of the situation, the narrative most widely accepted is one that reduces the situation to mere identity politics; White animal rights activists vs Indigenous people. Indigenous writer Linda Hogan and Seattle writer Brenda Peterson journeyed to Neah Bay to interview Makah elders who were breaking the silence about this narrative and speaking out against their tribe’s return to whaling.”

Dissent From Within_The Hidden Story of the Anti-Whaling Members of the Makah Tribe pdf

Towards An Indigenous Egoism

From back cover:

“The idea of individualism that the European explorers and colonizers failed to realize was its rejection to duty, devotion and submission. I recognize no authority figure over me, nor do I aspire to any particular ideology. I am not swayed by duty because I owe nothing to anyone. I am devoted to nothing but myself. I subscribe to no civilized standards or set of morals because I recognize no God or religion. No amount of pressure, judgment, or force should cause me to restrain myself from that which I desire. Egoist anarchists have declared war on society, war on civilization.”

Towards an Indigenous Egoism pdf