Nonhuman animal suffering: critical pedagogy and practical animal ethics.

Abstract

Each year millions of nonhuman animals are exposed to suffering in universities as they are routinely (ab)used in teaching and research in the natural sciences. Drawing on the work of Giroux and Derrida, this paper makes the case for a critical pedagogy of nonhuman animal suffering. The paper discusses critical pedagogy as an underrepresented form of teaching in universities, considers suffering as a concept and explores the pedagogy of suffering. The discussion focuses on the use of nonhuman animal subjects in universities, in particular in teaching, scientific research, and associated experiments. The paper concludes that a critical pedagogy of nonhuman animal suffering has the capacity to contribute to the constitution of a practical animal ethics conducive to the constitution of a radically different form of social life able to promote a more just and non-speciesist future in which nonhuman animals are not used as resources in scientific research in universities.