| Description | Dogs, Rats, and Goats! Oh My!: On the Wonderful World of Nonhuman Humanitarians with Ben Meiches, UW Tacoma
Humanitarian aid, human rights, humanitarian relief, these important issues are all about humans taking care of one another and working to alleviate suffering. They are the projects of generous, humane people working on behalf of humanity. Or are they? This talk explores a surprising development in humanitarian services: the growing number of nonhuman animals performing critical humanitarian labor in contexts ranging from demining and infectious disease prevention to food aid and emergency transport. These nonhuman laborers not only provide physical strength or organic ingenuity to humanitarian projects, but often introduce forms of affective and emotional labor in situations of duress. More than a simple achievement of effective behavioral science, nonhuman animal humanitarians raise important questions about existing rationales for humanitarian relief, the principles underlying humanitarianism, the violent potential of humanitarianism, and the future of humanitarian politics.
Benjamin Meiches is an associate professor of security studies and conflict resolution in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Tacoma. His research explores mass violence, humanitarianism, and political theory. He is the author of The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019) and Humanitarianism Beyond the Human (forthcoming). |
|---|