Resources
Outreach
From Aotearoa:
From Overseas:
The Christchurch Vegan Society Leaflets
On animal rights, environmentalist, nutrition and health.
- The Abolitionist Approach Pamphlet (also available in 28 other landguages)
LCC Library: Nonviolent Direct Action Toolkit
Philosophy, methods, dealing with law enforcement and and surveillance.
Blueprints: Systems thinking for campaigning and organizing
"Provides campaigners and organisers with an overall approach and a set of tools to understand the entrenched problems we work on and to engage more strategically with the complex systems that we operate in."
Other guides can be found here.
Animals in Aotearoa
The Compassionate Contrarians : A History of Vegetarians in Aotearoa New Zealand by Catherine Amey
"The first comprehensive history of vegetarianism in Aotearoa New Zealand; in it writer Catherine Amey describes how animal-free diets evolved in New Zealand from Victorian vegetarians through to modern animal rights campaigners."
The Politics of Love by Philip (Piripi) McKibbin
Articles and interviews with multiple contributors. "Politics is a dimension of ethics; it concerns how we live together. Love is a way of relating: to ourselves, each other, non-human animals, and the natural environment. It involves care, concern, and commitment – and it requires work." (See also the book, Love Notes: For a Politics of Love)
He Ika Haehae Kupenga by Philip (Piripi) McKibbin
"Shares kōrero with Māori from across Aotearoa New Zealand. It presents articles and interviews, exploring connections between kai, lifestyle, te taiao, hauora, and non-human animals."
New Zealand Vegetarians: At Odds with Their Nation by Annie Potts and Mandala White
This qualitative study, conducted between August and December 2006, explored the opinions and experiences of New Zealanders who challenge orthodox attitudes to the use and consumption of nonhuman animals. To date, New Zealand (NZ) has under-investigated the perspectives of those who oppose animal farming, the eating of nonhuman animals, and the exploitation of nonhuman animals.
Important Cows and Possum Pests New Zealand’s: Biodiversity Strategy and (Bio)Political Taxonomies of Introduced Species
This paper examines how New Zealand’s conservation discourses and strategies have, since the launch of its Biodiversity Strategy at the turn of the millennium, created and sustained a local taxonomy of species rooted in the overlapping but often clashing logics of biodiversity protection, cultural patrimony, and economic growth.
This report highlights all the animal welfare codes which contradict the Animal Welfare Act 1999.
Animal Agenda Aotearoa - provides an overview of political standing in regards to animal welfare.
Animal Protection Index, NZ - rates 50 countries according to their commitments to animal welfare
Te Ara Encyclopedia:
The socio-political environment for animal agriculture:
International Activists & Groups
Experienced animal rights activist and campaigner, does regular videos with news wrap-ups, as well as strategic advice on winning.
Christopher Sebastian (Facebook Page)
"Original and provocative conversations about cultivating a truly radical animal liberation for the 21st century."
Vegan For The Animals (Facebook Page)
"An organization dedicated to creating social awareness towards helping animals and the planet by promoting a vegan message."
Along with his teammates at Surge, he creates great informative online content, often responding to current events.
Veganarchist Memes: Breaking Leftist Speciesism
"Vegan. Anarchist. Memes."
Total Liberation Information Station Private Group
Radical perspectives on animal rights, resources and conversations.
A radical leftist perspective on animals, society and the natural world.
Vegan Voices of Color (Facebook Page)
Articles on human animal relationships through the lens of radical vegans of colour.
The Vegan Rainbow Project (Facebook Page)
Aims to "explore interconnections of oppression and enhance visibility for vegan living minorities and marginalised groups, whilst at the same time joining forces to work towards liberation for all beings."
Food Empowerment Project (Facebook Page)
'Food Empowerment Project seeks to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one's food choices.."
Creates content around investigations, outreach and information.
Produces video content taking down the industry's propaganda machine.
"Harvard-educated psychologist, professor, celebrated speaker, award-winning author, and president of Beyond Carnism," speaks and writes about the psychology of consuming animals and effective advocacy.
Radical Theory
Race, Colonisation and Animality
Critical Animal Studies: Women of Color (pdf) edited by Anastasia Yarbrough and Susan Thomas
(Essays from women of color scholars and activists across a variety of disciplines and social justice initiatives...on the issues of race, gender, and animality in critical animal studies."
Animal Colonialism: The Case of Milk (Pdf)
Short read. “[T]he pervasive availability of cows’ milk today—from grocery stores to gas stations—is a historically unprecedented product of industrialization, urbanization, culture, and economics. To these factors, I would add colonialism and international law."
Aphro-ism : Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by Aph and Syl Ko
A collection of essays that "provide new theoretical frameworks on race, advocacy for nonhuman animals, and feminism...Using popular culture as a point of reference." (Download Pdf)
Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out by Aph Ko
This book "offers a compelling vision of a reimagined social justice movement marked by a deconstruction of the conceptual framework that keeps activists silo-ed fighting their various oppressions - and one another." (Download Pdf)
Sistah vegan: black female vegans speak on food, identity, health and society by A Breeze Harper
"A series of narratives, critical essays, poems, and reflections from a diverse community of North American black-identified vegans. Collectively, these activists are de-colonizing their bodies and minds via whole-foods veganism." (Download Pdf)
The Dreaded Comparison by Marjorie Spiegel
A short book illustrating "in-depth similarities between the violence humans have wrought against other humans, and our culture's treatment of non-human animals...[defining] the modern system of animal exploitation in terms of the model and legacy of human slavery." (Download Pdf)
Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies by Kelly Struthers Montford and Chloë Taylor
"Explores some of the ways that the oppression of Indigenous persons and more-than-human animals are interconnected." (Download Pdf)
Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age by Claire Jean Kim
"[The book] demonstrates how race and species operate as conjoined logics, or mutually constitutive taxonomies of power...she argues for a multi-optic approach that takes different forms of domination seriously, and thus encourages an ethics of avowal among different struggles." (Download Pdf)
Feminism, Animal RIghts and Environmentalism
The Sexual Politics of Meat - A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J Adams
"[An] inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary society's ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity." (Download Pdf)
Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other Animals and the Earth by Carol J Adams
"Leading feminist scholars and activists as well as new voices introduce and explore themes central to contemporary ecofeminism." (Download Pdf)
Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (Pdf) by Val Plumwood
"...draws on the feminist critique of reason to argue that the master form of rationality of western culture has been systematically unable to acknowledge dependency on nature, the sphere of those it has defined as ‘inferior’ others. Because its knowledge of the world is sytematically distorted by the elite domination which has shaped it, the master rationality has developed ‘blind spots’ which may threaten our survival. The future depends increasingly on our ability to create a truly democratic and ecological culture beyond dualism."
Total Liberation
Defining Critical Animal Studies: An lntersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation edited by Anthony J. Nocella II, John Sorenson, KimSocha, and Atsuko Matsuoka
Rooted in anarchist perspectives that oppose all systems of domination and authoritarianism, CAS both challenges anthropocentrism and presents animal liberation as a social justice movement that intersects with other movements for positive change. (Download Pdf)
Veganism as Left Praxis (Pdf) by Jonathan Dickstein , Jan Dutkiewicz , Jishnu Guha-Majumdar & Drew Robert Winter
"Concern with animals is often sidelined in left and progressive politics, and veganism is often derided by leftists as a liberal project...this article argues that veganism conceived as a boycott aligns with existing Left commitments to social and environmental justice, and also those concomitant with a trans-species anti-exploitation ethic.
Total Liberation by Anonymous
'[The book] sets out an insurrectional project that draws its strength from social ecology, deep ecology and anti-speciesism. Casting aside outdated methods, it proposes a holistic multiform struggle fought in defense of all forms of life - humans, animals and the earth. " (Online, Download Pdf)
Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement by David Pellow
"Grounded in interviews with more than one hundred activists, on-the-spot fieldwork, and analyses of thousands of pages of documents, websites, journals, and zines, Total Liberation reveals the ways in which radical environmental and animal rights movements challenge inequity through a vision they call “total liberation.” (Download Pdf)
Ignoring Nature No More - the Case for Compassionate Conservation by Marc Bekoff
"Marc Bekoff and a host of renowned contributors argue that we need a new mind-set about nature, one that centers on empathy, compassion, and being proactive." (Download Pdf)
Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An introductory anthology of anarchy in the academy edited by Randall Amster, and others
A collection of essays which "highlights connections between anarchism and other perspectives such as feminism, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, post-modernism and post-structuralism, animal liberation, and environmental justice." (Download Pdf)
Animals and Capitalism
Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights by Bob Torres
"With a focus on labor, property, and the life of commodities, [this book] contains key insights into the broad nature of domination, power, and hierarchy. It explores the intersections between human and animal oppressions in relation to the exploitative dynamics of capitalism." (Download Pdf)
Animal Oppression and Capitalism by David Nibert
"This important two-volume set unapologetically documents how capitalism results in the oppression of animals ranging from fish and chickens to dogs, elephants, and kangaroos as well as in environmental destruction, vital resource depletion, and climate change." (Download Pdf)
Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict by David Nibert
[David Nibert[ "finds in the domestication of animals, which he renames "domesecration," a perversion of human ethics, the development of large-scale acts of violence, disastrous patterns of destruction, and growth-curbing epidemics of infectious disease" (Download Pdf)
Animality and Disability
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor
"[An] inquiry into the intersection of animal and disability liberation... How much of what we understand of ourselves as “human” depends on our physical and mental abilities...? And how much of our definition of “human” depends on its difference from “animal”?(Download Pdf)
Animals, Disability, and the End of Capitalism: Voices from the Eco-ability Movement
The efforts of diverse disability activists work to weave together...interconnections among nature, ability, and animals. Eco-ability stresses the interdependent relationship among everything and how the effect of one action such as the extinction of a species in Africa can affect the ecosystem in Northern California.
Other
Animals as Legal Beings: Contesting Anthropocentric Legal Orders by Maneesha Deckha
Examines...legal orders around the world, participate in the social construction of the human-animal divide and the abject rendering of animals as property. Through a rigorous but cogent analysis, Deckha calls for replacing the exploitative property classification for animals with a new transformative legal status or subjectivity called "beingness." (Download Pdf)
"Many activists also must struggle with "aftershock," the physical and emotional reverberations of frightening, horrifying, or otherwise traumatizing experiences endured in the course of their activism. This book is for aftershocked activists and their allies, as well as for people and organizations that practice high-risk activism."
The War Against Animals
"...argues that property in animals represents a bio-political conquest that aims to secure animals as the spoils of war. The goal for pro-animal advocacy must be to challenge this violent sovereignty and recognize animal resistance through forms of counter-conduct and truce." (Download Pdf)
Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
A comprehensive website including resources and information on abolitionism, based on the philosopher Gary L. Francione's writing on the topic.
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. (Download Pdf)
Critical Animal Studies: Thinking the Unthinkable by John Sorenson
A collection of essays which "examines our exploitation and commodification of non-human animals...Analyzing economic, ethical, historical, and sociological aspects of human-animal relations" (Download Now)
Some recommended reads from us and our friends to help us streamline our research. The top link takes you to the Amazon store; please consider purchasing the reads if you have the means. Otherwise we have also included a downloadable free version. Note: these categories overlap - it's the very nature of these topics.
