Zoöpolis *

While based in everyday practice like the bioregional paradigm, the zoopolis model differs in including animals and nature in the metropolis rather than relying on an anti-urban spatial fix like small-scale communalism. Beyond the city, the zoopolis model serves as a powerful curb on the contradictory and colonizing environmental politics of the west as practiced both in the west itself and as inflicted on other parts of the world. zoopolis presents both challenges and opportunities for those committed to eco-socialist, feminist and anti-racist urban futures. The discourse of zoopolis creates a space to initiate outreach, conversation and collaboration in borderlands of environmental action. zoopolis invites a critique of contemporary urbanization from the standpoint of animals, but also from the perspective of people who together with animals suffer from urban pollution and habitat degradation. Animals are even more profoundly affected by the urbanization process under capitalism, via extensive denaturalization of rural or wild lands, and widespread environmental pollution.