Sanctuary Communities

Farmed animal sanctuaries make multiple contributions to the cause of interspecies justice. They provide loving refuge and care to animals, and bear witness to the value of individual animal lives considered disposable by the larger society. Sanctuaries help educate humans about the situation of farmed animals, and they advocate for social, legal, and political change. But their most transformational role, I believe, is as safe, ongoing spaces where farmed animals can explore and develop their own agencies and create new forms of community with each other and with (or without) humans. By moving beyond the pastoralism of protector/protected, knower/known, and saviour/victim, sanctuaries can be seedbeds for interspecies justice and democratic community.