The animal advocacy movement in the Baltic states: links to other social justice issues and possibilities for intersectional activism

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the animal advocacy movement (AAM) in the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Taking an intersectional perspective, I examine whether and how key animal activists in the Baltics see links between animal rights and other social justice issues. I also consider how the movement communicates its messages to the general public in settings where ideas around animal justice and possibilities for animal advocacy are relatively recent and unfamiliar. This analysis contributes to debates regarding possibilities for intersectional activism and collaboration between social justice movements in the Baltics and beyond.

KEYWORDS:

• New social movements
• activism
• animal advocacy movement
• animal justice
• intersectionality
• critical animal studies
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Kristina Mering for her help in conducting interviews with the Baltic animal activists and to Nick Pendergrast for inspiring discussions on gender and intersectionality in relation to the animal advocacy movement and for his valuable comments on the draft of this paper. I would also like to thank Luke Stange for his helpful feedback to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use the term ‘animal advocacy movement’ (AAM) in this article over other terms (for example, ‘animal rights,’ ‘animal liberation’) that describe the movement of people advocating for other animals, such as the ‘animal rights movement,’ to cover a range of perspectives and forms of activism, ‘not all of which can be grounded in a rights-based approach’ (Bourke 2009, 131).

2. Broadly, the idea of animal rights involves the consideration of the interests of non-human animals. Peter Singer specifically rejects the rights-based approach, although his book (and his utilitarian approach) was influential in the development of a more animal rights-based AAM. The rights-based philosophy of Tom Regan and Gary Francione have been most influential in animal rights theory (for an extended discussion on Singer and animal rights, see Pendergrast 2014, 25–29).

3. Speciesism refers to prejudice and assigning different value and rights to beings based on their species membership. Its principal mechanism of functioning is similar to forms of discrimination in human societies, such as sexism or racism. The term was coined in 1970 by the British psychologist Richard D. Ryder and popularized by Singer in Animal Liberation (Singer 1975).

4. For a discussion on race and whiteness in post-socialist eastern Europe, see Imre 2005.

5. For a discussion on this in the Estonian context, see Helemäe and Saar (2012).

6. Sometimes also known as ‘effective activism.’

7. Carol Adams’ seminal book The Sexual Politics of Meat. A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990) is a key work in ecofeminist theory and has greatly influenced the research field of CAS as well as the thinking of many animal activists. Adams highlights similarities in the patterns of domination over women and animals in the patriarchal capitalist social order.

8. In 2015, the Los Angeles based animal advocacy organization ‘Mercy for Animals’ took part in the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade. The animal activists carried a large rainbow colored banner displaying the organization’s logo and the slogan: ‘No one is free while others are oppressed.’

9. In the context of animal justice and activism, abolitionism refers to opposition to any kind of human use of other animals, and advocates for the immediate halt of this practice. This position rejects solutions offering incremental improvements to the conditions in which humans raise and slaughter animals, including gradually reducing the consumption of animal-based foods. The latter approach, favoring incremental change, is known as welfarism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kadri Aavik

Dr. Kadri Aavik is a sociologist and lecturer in sociology at Tallinn University. Her recent research includes work in the emergent field of critical animal studies. Her research interests in this area deal with intersectionality and animal advocacy, the animal advocacy movement in the post-socialist space, and the role of national dietary guidelines in promoting the human use of other animals. [email protected]