Is Care Enough?

Is Care Enough? Nandini Thiyagarajan (bio) When i started to consider the idea of transition, I saw how it functions both on small and large scales. In so many ways, our everyday lives fit the ebb and flow of transition and change as day turns into night, as we move through our many different selves who we become in different contexts at home, work, play, as our habits (eating, leisure, professional) shift to fit how healthy or unhealthy, productive or unproductive we feel like being. Transition also shapes the bigger picture of our lives as we age, as relationships shift and change either with or without us, as jobs move us around the world, or as the lure of putting down roots inspires us to stay in one place. It would be dishonest of me, however, to wax nostalgic about how much transition means, how wonderful it can be, or how it is something that I have whole-heartedly embraced. To be honest, when I started thinking about change, it scared me. I am not good at changing. I don't grab any and every opportunity "by the horns." My approach to change is more akin to a turtle slowly peering one or maybe two eyeballs out of my shell to see if the threat of change was still around and to assess what to do next. I might try to appear carefree, relaxed, calmly able to take on any changes that come my way, but realistically when it comes to change my inner self is a small child clinging desperately to a hoard of [End Page 163] apparently beloved (but mostly unnecessary) teddy bears that I may or may not have played with or even seen in the past few years. I am someone who seeks stability, and, frankly, I don't like change. That's why when I found myself in the second year of the PhD considering a complete overhaul of my project I was overwhelmed by the question, What am I thinking? But, after proposing a PhD project on critical race theory, I was thinking about animals. During my master's degree, I had taken a course on critical animal studies and it changed my life. That course offered one of those precious light bulb moments that shape our early academic careers and that we search for later on. What I learned, which can be briefly summarized as an awareness of and indebtedness to animals, moved me. So, I changed the most intimate details of my life, from what I ate and what I wore to the products I used to clean my house, my makeup and skincare, and how I interacted with my pets. And yet, I spent almost two years of studying, writing proposals, grant applications, and papers on my previous topic, trying very hard to resist a change that was already in motion. Don't worry, this is not a treatise on why you should all care about animals in ways that overturn your lives. I always find myself prefacing my interest in animals with a comforting assurance that I am not "that kind" of animal rights person. I am skeptical of—if not hostile to—peta's various projects, I do not claim that my way of living and caring is superior to yours, and I certainly won't shame you for wearing leather or eating (most kinds) of meat. If I continue with this honesty, I would have to tell you that my animal politics and how I enact them are in a constant state of transition as I negotiate my concern for animal welfare with my concern for human rights and environmental concerns. Although we are taught to welcome change and that our ways of thinking should unsettle and shift, the obstacles to changing academic projects can be daunting. It is not easy to start studying animals within an inherently human-centred discipline. How can we learn to start thinking and caring differently? Where do we start? In my research on literary animals specifically, I am constantly followed around by the question, In the face of amassing and urgent political concerns across the world, why are literary animals important...

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