Sarat Colling

ANIMAL RESISTANCE IN THE GLOBAL CAPITALIST ERA

The concept of animal resistance is now reaching a wide public audience through the digital mediascape. Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era offers an overview of how animals resist human orderings in the context of capitalism, domestication, and colonization. Exploring this understudied phenomenon, this book is attentive to both the standpoints of animal resisters and the ways they are represented by humans. Together, these lenses provide insight into how animal resistance disrupts the dominant paradigm of human exceptionalism and the distancing strategies of animal enterprises. Animals have been relegated to the margins by human spatial and ideological orderings, but they are also the subjects of their own struggle, located at the center of their liberation movement. Well-researched and accessible, with over fifty images that aid in understanding both the experiences of and responses to animals who resist, Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era is an important contribution to scholarship on animals and society, and will appeal to a wide audience interested in human relationships with the other animals with whom we share this planet.

Order:

MSU Press | Indigo | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca

Reviews:

"Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era is a testimony to the horrendous plight our animal siblings have been enduring at human hands since the dawn of civilization. Sarat Colling allows us to hear the voices of animal resistance as she builds an irrefutable argument for the elimination of the physical and epistemic borders that keep humans locked in supremacy and nonhumans behind the wall of silence and abuse. Written with deep empathy and respect, this book is a must-read." – Layla AbdelRahim, author of Children’s Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation and Wild Children—Domesticated Dreams

"Sarat Colling’s Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era offers a profoundly important and overdue contribution: a deep dive into how animals resist the logics of global capitalism that have, for so long, thoroughly shaped their lives and exploitation. Farmed animals, in particular, have been persistently overlooked, but Colling’s attention to their resistance makes a powerful statement about their agency and their ongoing rejection of their conditions, and demands that as humans we act in solidarity with this growing social movement. Colling’s writing weaves beautiful and moving stories of individual animals resisting their conditions with sharp and timely analysis that contextualizes these acts of resistance. Ultimately, Colling inspires action and a complete rethinking of farmed and other animals’ positioning in global society." – Kathryn Gillespie, author of The Cow with Ear Tag #1389

"This powerful and cutting-edge work breaks new theoretical ground by examining nonhuman animal agency and couching the analysis in a political-economic, historical, post-colonialist analysis. From the amazing act of resistance of Emily the cow to the memorialized resistance of Francis the pig, the author masterfully places stories of the resistance of oppressed nonhuman animals in social structural perspective." – David Nibert, Professor of Sociology, Wittenberg University

"Sarat Colling offers a landmark scholarly book about animals and society . . . Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era is a well-researched, extremely unique, and highly readable work that surely will appeal to a broad global audience interested in human-nonhuman relationships (anthrozoology)." – Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Colorado

New Release

ABOUT

I was born on Hornby Island, into an artistic family, surrounded by the Salish Sea and its many wild inhabitants. My early life spent exploring forests, beaches, and creek beds seeded an ethos of anti-speciesism and environmentalism.

In 2004, I became vegan and began to volunteer for animal rights. Several years later, I moved to Ontario, where I studied English and Sociology at Brock University and was active in a community of Critical Animal Studies scholar-activists.

Writing became a tool of activism. I am particularly interested in amplifying stories of animal agency. My master’s thesis, “Animals without Borders: Farmed Animal Resistance in New York,” and books such as Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era and Chickpea Runs Away, shed light on the often-overlooked narratives of animals resisting human exploitation. My work has been translated into several languages.

Today, I have returned to my island roots. I live in a handmade tiny house, in the company of beloved companion animals. My hours are spent writing, drawing, walking, and being immersed in the wildness which continues to inspire my work.

I am currently working on a book that features fifty stories of animal rebellion, alongside portraits by vegan artists. Proceeds will support the animal sanctuary movement.

CHICKPEA RUNS AWAY

Chickpea the cow lives in a factory farm. She watches as her friends and family are taken away to an uncertain fate. One day, the farmer leads Chickpea and all the rest of the cows outdoors to a scary-looking truck, and Chickpea knows she shouldn’t go. Making a split-second decision, she leaps the fence and escapes into the woods. For the first time ever, Chickpea discovers the world outside the farm and, thanks to some delicious vegan pie, makes new friends who welcome her with loving hearts. Chickpea’s story is inspired by many real-life cases of runaway cows.

Order:

Vegan Publishers | Amazon.com | Amazon.ca

Reviews:

"We recently ordered 'Chickpea Runs Away’, and have read it over many times since (at my children’s request!). My kids (4 and 7) are very sensitive to any violent topics so I wasn’t sure whether I should save it for when they got older, but I had a look through and realized it was just perfect for them. It tells the heart-touching story of a young calf living on a factory farm. Without getting into the horrific realities of factory farms, it lets the reader know that it is a horrible place for any being to live. Throughout the book, the reader is rooting for Chickpea to find a better life. The fact that Chickpea is a young one herself with a loving mother allows children to easily relate to her and feel for her struggles. I highly recommend this book!" – Heather, Canada

"A touching tale which shines a light on the harsh reality of animal farming without being too graphic, and inspires compassion for all animals." – Violet’s Vegan Comics

ANIMALS IN REVOLT: BORDERS, RESISTANCE, AND HUMAN SOLIDARITY

In 2000, while a cow was being sent to a Brooklyn abattoir, she made a dash for freedom and escaped. The cow, later named Queenie, was going to be returned to the slaughterhouse, but public outcry in her favor prevailed and she was sent to a farm sanctuary instead. In Animali in Rivolta, Sarat Colling examines the experiences of animals who escape from slaughterhouses and analyzes the impact their stories have on public consciousness. The aim of this research is to understand the forms of animal resistance and the role of animal resisters stories in disrupting the ways in which humans, and in particular consumers, distance themselves from the violence of animal enterprises. The book contains six stories that allow you to examine in-depth the cases of animal escape occurring in the state of New York. The survey is part of the interdisciplinary field of critical animal studies and draws on the most recent theories elaborated by animal geography, transnational feminism, and critical discourse. This contribution specifically addresses the resistance of domesticated animals, comparing the experiences and representations of this resistance acquired through stories of those who care for the animals, such as sanctuary workers, and from the depictions present in mainstream media and capitalist enterprises.

Order:

Mimesis Edizioni

Reviews:

"Animals in Revolt: Borders, Resistance, and Human Solidarity is a perfect book for readers who have the most diverse interests: those who want to understand antispecism; those interested in media; those who are passionate about speech analysis; those with a passion for epistemology; those who have already read everything but certainly not this; those who have never read anything . . . and then start with this; those who are a "fan" of Foucault, of Sara Ahmed, of bell hooks; those who ask themselves, what is the difference between ecologists, animal rights activists, animal rights activists without borders, antispeciests, and vegans, but above all what the point of all this is; those who have deconstructed everything except their own privilege; those who have deconstructed their privileges, but only in pieces; those who have deconstructed everything except what they have internalized; those who have internalized that the fight is only done for the oppression that directly concerns you (e.g., as you will never be a male chick, then what happens to the male chick does not concern you . . .). But if you are a militant feminist, anti-racist, queer, you will immediately understand that while this book is about Molly, Queenie, etc., above all she talks about you. If you are against speciesism, you understand that this book is about Molly, Queenie, etc., but it also speaks of: black women, migrant women, black men, migrants, refugees, and so on, and so . . . it is about you as well." – Rachele Borghi, Paris-Sorbonne University

"The book offers the necessary tools to correctly interpret – as resistance phenomena – what is commonly ridiculed as an insignificant anecdote – from evasion to assaults, from escapes to the self-mutilation of enclosed animals. Enriching a line of thought that in Italy is mainly supported by "Resistenza animale," Colling clearly states that despite millennia of domestication and selection of species and docile individuals, and despite the disproportion of forces in the field, non-humans rebel, are endowed with political agency, and are also political animals." – Massimo Filippi, Il Manifesto