1:15 – 2:30PM, Wednesday 14 October via Zoom. Please contact Laura Shepherd for Zoom link information

Abstract

Multispecies justice is a developing field – or perhaps more accurately, fields. It draws together a range of academic fields to examine human and nonhuman relationships. These include relationships of respect, responsibility and, to some, reciprocity. The extent of those relationships and the range of species, forms and being remains indistinct and variable. For some they are anthropocentric – motivated by the desire to enhance human experience, life opportunities, goods and virtues. For others the nonhuman realm has intrinsic value and values, and it is this intrinsic worth that motivates the call for multispecies justice. My argument here is that given the relative infancy of multispecies justice as a field of study in the western academy, there is an opportunity to ensure it examines not only how to avoid damaging domination of the nonhuman realm, but also the ongoing colonial domination of Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies. I am not suggesting an appropriation of Indigenous knowledge, but rather an exploration of ways in which the field may remain sufficiently nuanced and open to accommodate multiple epistemological and ontological framings of theory. In this paper I will draw from Mātauranga Māori to discuss an aspect of that decolonial project – why the scope of multispecies justice must cover all planetary being and all time.

About the Speaker

Christine is a Post-Doctoral fellow at the Sydney Environment Institute, a member of the MSJ Collective and a lecturer in the Department of Government & international Relations. Her research takes a critical decolonial approach to overlapping areas of justice – environmental, climate, intergenerational, indigenous and multispecies justice.