ABSTRACT
This chapter develops earlier ideas on posthuman political theory specifically within the framing of a politics of emancipation or of 'liberation'. It engages with the considerable literature in animal studies and work which, since Peter Singer's call for 'animal liberation' in the 1970s, has made a concerted attempt to extend the project of emancipation beyond the human. Drawing inspiration from the work of Benedictus de Spinoza, Hasana Sharp advocates a 'philanthropic posthumanism'. In considering critical approaches to the emancipation of other creatures, we begin with the critique of the reformist approach to human–animal relations and proceed to consider ways in which humanist conceptions of 'welfare', 'rights', 'liberation', 'sovereignty' and 'citizenship' have been developed and deployed in making the case for transformation in the social relations of species. The chapter focuses on the discussion of plant theory, it would seem, the further from actual plant life.
