Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era

In late August 2021, three zebras escaped an exotic animal breeding operation in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Their ability to elude capture for several weeks led some to speculate that the zebras could establish a free-living herd, much like the horses of nearby Assateague Island. One zebra, however, died in a snare trap while attempting to reenter the property not long after escaping, and the two remaining zebras were lured back with food in December. An investigation found that the manager of the breeding operation had accumulated more than 100 violations of the Animal Welfare Act over the past decade, each a documented instance of animal cruelty.While regional, national, and even international news framed the zebras’ escape and subsequent journey around Prince George's County as a lighthearted story about the shenanigans of three ornery animals that were lucky enough to stumble through a hole in a fence, Sarat Colling's Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era reframes animal escape as resistance, a set of ongoing efforts to survive the conditions of capitalism that oppress, confine, and harm animal bodies and minds. Seen through this lens, the zebras’ escape resisted not only the hostile and dangerous living conditions that resulted in animal cruelty charges but also the instrumental value system that reduced them to breeding “stock” forced to labor in the service of capital accumulation. Moving beyond the liberalist frameworks of intentionality, premeditation, and conscious choice that have limited resistance to the domain of the human, Colling argues that scholars and activists should conceptualize resistance as the transgression of borders (e.g., physical enclosures, logics, social structures) and roles (e.g., domesticated animal, food source, laborer). Animals resist for many reasons, she explains, including to escape harm, to continue living, to defend themselves, to affirm bonds of love and affiliation, to enact revenge, and to end loneliness and boredom. Colling identifies four common methods of animal resistance: escape, liberation, retaliation, and everyday defiance.Drawing from a substantial archive of reports, visual texts, newspapers, magazines, interviews, and websites, Animal Resistance presents a collection of historical and contemporary stories about animals resisting the violence of capitalism during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Though Colling makes an effort to describe diverse and global experiences, most of the stories focus on animals suffering from factory farming or animals involved in the entertainment industry, with many occurring in New York City. As she understands it, animal resistance calls attention to and disrupts the possessive logics, practices, and operations of late capitalism. Indeed, a central thesis of the book is that animal resistance will occur with increasing frequency as capitalism expands. Animal Resistance, in short, describes a different animal liberation movement, one brought into being by nonhuman animals in response to not only their inadequate living conditions but also the inadequacies of previous political movements to end their mistreatment. As Cary Wolfe (2012) observes in Before the Law, the first decades of the 21st century have produced unprecedented suffering for animals even as growing numbers of people demand an end to this suffering.By defying capitalist orderings, animal resisters are often seen as out of place. Such a position, Colling argues, encourages people to view creatures such as Tilikum the orca or Tatiana the tiger as individuals with unique histories and needs. At the same time, however, corporate actors threatened by cows escaping a slaughterhouse or chimpanzees fighting zookeepers devote substantial effort and resources to obscure the suffering of animals and to deny their resistance. As Colling repeatedly points out, many animals who resist are killed, often by local police forces performing public demonstrations of brutality. In seeking to dismiss and downplay animal resistance, company spokespersons cite the offending animal's character flaws or describe their rebellion as a random occurrence stemming from unpredictable “wildness.” For animals like Francis the Pig who lived freely in Red Deer, Alberta, for several months after fleeing a slaughterhouse, life outside captivity can provide the conditions required to finally flourish. Challenging claims that captive and domesticated animals cannot survive outside human control, Colling asserts that animals formerly dependent upon humans can lead vibrant, satisfying lives as free-living beings.Although the book reconceptualizes resistance in ways that expose the operations of late capitalism and underscore animal agency, Animal Resistance stops short of imagining coalitions of humans and nonhumans coming together to challenge the violence of capitalist institutions. Near the end of the monograph, Colling adopts the language of allyship, arguing that “human allies” must act in “solidarity” with nonhuman animals and “elevate their voices” (p. 126). Allyship typically depends upon members of a privileged outside group acting in ways that support those experiencing oppression. The figure of the ally raises questions regarding emotional labor, cultural difference, reactionary activism, and political voice and stamina. As racial justice organizers have observed, allyship produces detachment, remains passive and reactionary, and tends to end before the trouble is over.Humans, in Colling's account, need something more akin to animal resistance; they need a way to participate in the fight for multispecies justice. I see space for Colling to engage such collaborative, sustained activism when she discusses how capitalist institutions such as industrial slaughterhouses harm vulnerable humans, like immigrant laborers and the rural poor, together with nonhuman animals, like cows, pigs, and chickens. Similarly, her treatment of animal ability provides space to imagine multispecies coalitions. Animal Resistance privileges able-bodied and able-minded animals who can break free from enclosures or fight back against human oppressors. What might resistance look like, however, for the significant numbers of animals living with disabilities in factory farms and the entertainment industry? As scholars like Sunaura Taylor (2017) argue, disability offers a site for human and nonhuman collaboration.Without reducing its interdisciplinary breadth, Animal Resistance can be read as an exemplar of contemporary feminist animal ethics. By centering the viewpoints and experiences of nonhuman animals, Colling's discussion of animal resistance exposes the operations of violent structures and asks humans to consider, with empathy and compassion, what these creatures need to thrive in our care.

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