ReadingAnimals

My journey to the book Aftershock was summarized in Part 1 of this post. In part 2, I continue with reflections on the first of the three sections of the book: geography, geology and ecology.

.:geography:.

The first section of the book deals with our experiences as human animals: emotion, embodiment and empathy. Given all of the wonders in the animal world, anthropocentrism leads us to privilege certain traits, e.g. language, over others, reinforcing attitudes and ways of being that further separate us from animals and nature. Despite that, language is a part of our experience and way of interacting with the world around us. And, as the author points out, an intrinsic part of trauma recovery.

The author goes on to share the variety of traumatic experiences that activists encounter. It is not simply that activists are witness to trauma exacted upon others - animals, humans, the earth - but that also opposed to and fighting against the perpetrators of that very trauma.

Physician Judith Herman made a similar point in her seminal volume on the study and treatment of trauma, Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror. She writes,

It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain.

In geography, Jones extends Herman’s position, from where the animals are allegory, to include animals and animal advocates in the process and politics of bearing witness.