Fostering Feminist Politics of Veganism: On ‘the Political’ in Donna Haraway’s Approach to Food, Eating and Animals

Abstract

This paper explores Donna Haraway’s approach to ‘the political’ in her book When Species Meet. The paper proposes an alternative to previous readings of Haraway’s work on food, eating and animals, which have interpreted Haraway’s argument as a stance against veganism or as a depoliticised approach to animal exploitation. Drawing on Margret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick’s analysis of Haraway’s work in relation to political theory and Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic approach to the political, this paper instead argues that Haraway’s contribution is neither particularly set against veganism nor is it depoliticised. The paper argues that Haraway’s work can rather be made sense of in relation to an agonistic approach to the political that fosters a space for disagreement and ongoing reflection of the constitutive outsides of agreements on food and animal political issues.

Keywords

• animal politics
• donna haraway
• food
• the political
• veganism