ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that like ecofeminism, the literary anthropological works of Zora Neale Hurston make inextricable connections between women and nature and women's commitment to environmentalism and the natural world. "Extending moral consideration to non-human nature and promoting representative thinking beyond species boundaries" —that is, "anti-speciesism"—represents the eco-critical approach adopted in this examination of Hurston's literary and textual representation of human and nonhuman animals. In the realm of black folklore, for instance, animals are afforded moral consideration precisely because of the importance of the animal as protest figure in the history of the oral narratives traceable to the early slaves. Hurston's aim appears not to metaphorically conflate the bodies of human beings with those of animals, but rather to identify a tactic of race politics—in this instance "the white mare technique" —to challenge the means by which the government structures human hierarchies along racist lines.
