ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what posthumanist thought might have to offer to debates already underway on the subject of de-extinction science. By exposing the limits of anthropocentric models that conceptualise extinction phenomena, I assess how the de-extinction debate is often embedded in a bombastic human exceptionalism that continues to limit the purview of ethical care of, and moral obligation to, critically endangered and extinct species. Through a posthumanist critique, this chapter illuminates how human–animal relationships (and by extension, conceptions of species, and of what it means to be human) are shaped by the retrospective histories and prospective futures of extinction processes.
