Agnes Trzak is a feminist animal rights activist and a PhD student in Communication Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, UK. She teaches International Relations and has published and presented her conceptualizations of activism on numerous occasions. Examining scholarly ideas of the public sphere and comparing them to the realities of politics and grassroots activism, Agnes noticed a shift within literature towards intersectionality and the celebration of difference. However, many leftist activist spaces still remain intrinsically discriminatory to non-normative individuals, being ableist, sexist, racist etc. At the same time animal rights struggles to establish itself as a movement of the left. In her research and her activism with Animal Rights Cambridge, Agnes is fighting first and foremost for non-humans, who are often overseen by the speciesism inherent in the concept of social justice. She recognizes additionally, that as a liberation movement constituted of humans, animal rights must guarantee save spaces for all who are left voiceless by patriarchal society. To establish a way this can be put into practice, Agnes interrogates the discourses of patriarchy and explores the possibility of constructing new languages that lie outside this system which oppresses all non-normative bodies (human or non-human), so as to contribute to a truly intersectional liberation movement.
presentation:
Phallologocentrism in animal activism: Language as oppression