The Italian Animal Advocacy Archipelago and the Four Animalisms

Abstract

Italian animal advocacy is extremely divided and fragmented: in this article, we focus on its political dimension. Based upon prior studies, we expected the Italian animal advocacy archipelago to be clustered into three strata: old welfare, new welfare, and animal rights. Quantification of our survey (704 respondents throughout Italy) instead indicated a dichotomy between the animal rights area and both types of welfarists, particularly in terms of ethical values and localization on a progressive/conservative political axis. However, when we used qualitative interviews to probe the views of Italian animal advocates in greater depth, we detected a greater fragmentation and identified four ideal types of activism, defined as follows: political animalism, anarchist animalism, anti-political animalism, and moderate animalism. These ideal types are separated primarily along two dimensions: relationship with neo-liberal societal and economic structure, and degree of intersectional approach with other social movements. In the conclusions, we also offer general reflections on the coexistence of lobbying and protest, the phenomenon on NGOization, and the influence of individual activism and frame personalization on contemporary social movements.

Keywords

• animal rights movement
• animal advocacy
• antispeciesism
• animal welfare
• political movements