ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the methodological dilemmas that arise when engaging in a post-humanist approach to social justice and equity. Specifically, opening up research to include the non-human-animal paradigm means methodologically adding speciesism into interrogations of the interlocking oppressions of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and ableism. Moreover, it pushes one to consider feasibility, accountability, and responsibility, and to consider what questions are/are not “askable” or “answerable” in critical animal research. While there has been much attention given to the task of “giving voice” to the marginalized in critical research, what of animals’ voice? Who can speak? What can we know? Guided by the burgeoning literatures in critical animal studies, this chapter methodologically considers the “question of the animal” through examinations of the hyper-consumption of animal flesh at sports events. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the enactment of an intersectional-queer-phenomenological-vegan methodology would see no dilemma/s in challenging the systemic anthro/carno centrism that destroys those deemed expendable and non-human. This is certainly challenging, but Fusco believes that it has implications for all sentient beings, as well as for our ecological futures.
