Multispecies Futures: Exploring Human-Animal Relations for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies
Learning objectives and brief outline
Abstract
This contribution explores the significance of human-animal relationships as a key, yet often overlooked, dimension of peace, justice, and inclusive societies. These relationships, while frequently taken for granted, are deeply embedded not only in everyday practices but also in institutional arrangements and systems of power that normalize various forms of interspecies violence. By bringing these dynamics into focus, the contribution invites students to move beyond anthropocentric assumptions and to engage with diverse worldviews that either sustain or challenge interspecies injustice. Through critical reflection and problem-oriented group work, students are encouraged to examine real-world contexts to develop responses that connect interspecies concerns with broader socioecological questions. The aim is not to offer predefined solutions but to foster ethical imagination and collaborative inquiry into how multispecies futures might be envisioned in ways that are grounded in justice, care, and compassion.
Learning objectives
Course participants who study the learning module will be able to
- To raise students' awareness of interspecies injustice by exploring the complexities of human-animal relationships.
- To enable students to critically reflect and evaluate structures that (re)produce violence in human-animal relationships.
- To enable students to understand diverse worldviews about human-animal relationships that sustain or challenge institutionalized violence toward animals.
Contributor
Prof. Dr. Estela M. Diaz, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, emdiaz@comillas.edu
Field of expertise: Sustainability transitions, Critical Animal Studies, Education for Sustainability
Prof. Dr. Amparo Merino, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, amerino@comillas.edu
Field of expertise: Sustainability transitions, Social entrepreneurship, Education for Sustainability