ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, although many feminist methodologies remain anthropocentric, their defining principles suggest the inclusion and salience of nonhuman animals. Drawing on Roxani Krystalli’s “four pillars of feminist methodology,” related to curiosity, reflexivity, relationality, and joy, I demonstrate how these pillars constitute a feminist ethical imperative to consider animal life beyond the human. I open my argument with an exploration of concerns about boundary blurring between humans and nonhuman animals, an orientation that has animated much multispecies scholarship, particularly in light of settler colonialism that produces conceptions of “Man” against animalized Otherness. Then, I reflect on nonhuman animals’ objectified position within university ethics reviews to underscore how questions of animals’ consent are discounted to serve research agendas grounded in human exceptionalism. Such codified degradation underscores the urgency to develop feminist methodologies attuned to the richness of human and nonhuman life. In response, I extend Krystalli’s “four pillars of feminist methodologies,” considering each in detail, to raise critiques about their relevance to nonhuman animals and to chart one path toward such a goal.
