Decolonising Animals

Rick De Vos conducts research in animal studies and in anthropogenic extinction, in particular its cultural and historical significance and the ways in which it is articulated and practiced. He is an adjunct research fellow in the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University in Western Australia, and before that coordinated the Research and Graduate Studies Programs at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin. He is a member of the Extinction Studies Working Group and has published essays on extinction in various academic journals and essay collections, including Knowing Animals (2007), Animal Death (2013), Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations (2017), and The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies (2018). With Matthew Chrulew he edited a special issue of Cultural Studies Review in 2019 entitled “Extinction Studies: Stories of Unravelling and Reworlding”.

• AcknowledgementsAbout the contributorsIntroduction: Unsettling subjects by Rick De Vos The horse is Indigenous to North America: why silencing the horse is so important to the settler project by Kelsey Dayle John “Red I am”: names for dingoes in science and story by Rowena Lennox Reading Toni Morrison close and far: decolonising literary animal studies by Susan McHugh Mass extinction and responsibility by Katarina Gray-Sharp Crypsis, discovery and subjectivity: unsettling fish histories by Rick De Vos Speculative shit: bison world-making and dung pat pluralities by Danielle Taschereau Mamers*The jaguar gaze: is it possible to decolonise human–animal relationships through archaeology? by Ana Paula Motta and Martin Porr The birdwomen speak: “storied transformation” and non-human narrative perspectives by Kirsty Dunn Index

“Decolonising Animals is exactly what it says it is: a book of ethical, tightly curated contributions that counter, reshape, and challenge the place of the “animal” in the settler state imaginary. It reminds all readers that time, place, and categorization are culturally bound: never absolute, each depends on the stories we1tell ourselves, the relationships we privilege, and those we denigrate. ... Indigenous students will find themselves reflected in its pages, while for those who are non-Indigenous, it provides a model for the decolonization work needed to enable the flourishing of all Peoples and people but particularly for Indigenous members of settler state polities and for Earth others.”– Christine Winter (Ngati Kahungunu ki te Wairoa), Anthrozoös December 2024, 1–3