Decolonizing Interspecies Relationality

Abstract

The article examines neoliberal and anthropocentric discourses of disability inclusion in the context of animal rescue. The first part offers a close reading of two US-based documentaries— Guardians of Recoleta (Kuhre) and God’s Little People (Berkley)—both of which perpetuate ableist and anthropocentric assumptions about transnational adoption as a “cure” or solution for animals with illnesses and disabilities. Drawing upon ethnographic participant observation at a cat sanctuary in Syros, Greece, the second part discusses narratives of feline skin cancer survivors that center around animal agency, pleasure, and desire. By caring for cats in a way that accounts for their capacity to experience pleasure as well as pain, volunteers at Syros Cats articulate a decolonial approach to the question of interspecies relationality, one based not on neoliberal models of ownership and property rights, but rather on a recognition of street cats as subjects of multispecies habitats.