Critical Animal Studies (hereafter CAS) is a new interdisciplinary research field in Finland. As a research field, it has a few differences with Human-Animal Studies (HAS) in theory and practice. While CAS is an exciting and bold new field of research, the field might benefit from a more thorough engagement with theories about race, whiteness in particular, within the context of Finland. Questions about race are deeply entangled with questions about animals. These discourses are part of ideological formations stemming from a Western context. They cannot be separated from nation building or colonial pasts and presents.
In this essay, I will give examples from teaching CAS within higher education, and share how I have, in my own research on veganism, benefited from analyzing meat-eating as part of a biopolitical and white nation-building project. Finally, I show how Critical Race Theory (CRT) may clash with white-centered discourses in the context of academic engagement in current political events.
CAS has sprung from an American geographical and cultural context in the early 2000s. The field concerns itself with the condition of animals, not only ”the animal question”1Taylor and Twine 2014, 1.. This means, in short, an analysis of the hierarchies of human-animal relations as well as a critical standpoint towards the human exploitation of animals. Due to its outspoken political and activist nature, CAS stands in tension with many research fields in which the study of animals might be one aspect2Ibid.. Some HAS research might not necessarily question – or act against – hierarchies between different humans and animals.
One example of this tension can be found in the Annual conference of the Finnish Society for Human–Animal Studies in Jyväskylä in 2025, with the theme of ”Sustainable animal relations”. In the round-table discussion with experts, introducing the conference, Finnish professor Janne Kotiaho from the Department of Biological and Environmental Science at the University of Jyväskylä discussed in a slightly ironic manner how he himself keeps sheep. In discussion with the chair Teea Kortetmäki, who is a Finnish social scientist and philosopher specialized in sustainability sciences and food system studies, Kotiaho admitted that it had not occurred to him to consider the sheep’s viewpoint in this human-animal relation. Kotiaho’s contribution to the conference left keeping animals for food unquestioned and normalized, and many participants of the conference enraged. Kotiaho is known, among other things, for chairing the Finnish Nature Panel, formed by the Ministry of the Environment. In his speech, Kotiaho reproduced a hegemonic discourse and understanding of animals as resources. A CAS theoretical framework critiques such an anthropocentric position and strives to illuminate the ideological and historical roots within Western science and philosophy in such intellectual positions.
CAS often engages with ecofeminist thought, though not always. In the Finnish context, feminist animal studies has gained some attention. For example, the Finnish lecturer and researcher of gender studies Kuura Irni has reinterpreted and criticized parts of ecofeminist theory and suggested an intersectional and trans-inclusive ecofeminism3Irni 2024.. CAS also has an anarchist intellectual tradition as well as a tradition of drawing on post- and decolonial theory. A CRT and CAS theoretical framework, together with an ecofeminist analysis of power, allows for a deep analysis of human and animal hierarchies.4Writer and vegan activist Aph Ko, for example, suggests a framework for analysis that she calls ”multidimensional liberation theory”. Ko argues that analyzing power through this framework would provide more nuance to studying both human domination of animals and domination of certain humans over others (Ko 2019, 73).
Within the new field of CAS, I argue that a deeper engagement with theories about nationalism, colonialism and race would be beneficial especially in the Finnish context. This would allow for an analysis of the research field itself and enable examining how understanding race influences and shapes current domination of animals and humans.
Some might criticize my own position in this essay for focusing mostly on human hierarchies. However, I agree with several CRT scholars who focus on veganism and human-animal relations, and argue that postcolonial, decolonial and CRT approaches are needed for better analyzing the conditions of humans and animals alike.5See for example A. B. Harper 2010; A. B. Harper 2013; A. L. Harper 2013; Ko & Ko 2017; Ko 2019. This is because in some instances, non-human animals might be given a higher value than some human beings.
I write this not to engage in an argument about the most important victim, but rather to counter some common discourses in a white environment where animals are prioritized over humans in an attempt to counter discourses that do not take an animal perspective into consideration at all. This counterdiscourse, however, does not deeply consider differences between humans, nor the ideological roots of the hierarchies we so often consider normal. In emphasizing only the oppression of animals, without engaging with Critical Race Theory as well, scholars and activists alike risk re-creating the human-animal distinction without sensitivity to human differences.
A Finnish context
How can CAS scholars tackle questions related to humans described as animals in the Finnish context? The question leads to further questions about land and human relations with animals, especially when it comes to the Indigenous Sámi, for whom reindeer are culturally important. First, it can be useful to remind ourselves about context, constructions of race, and the workings of animalization. Rauna Kuokkanen, Sámi researcher of Indigenous politics and settler colonialism in the Nordic countries, has pointed to the importance of recognizing the connections between whiteness and colonialism, and to the Finnish context as a continuum of colonial ideologies and discourses6Kuokkanen 2022..
Murray Bookchin, an American social theorist and developer of social ecology, argues that a state aims to create subjects equipped with a mentality that accords to the state’s needs7Bookchin 1982, 127. Bookchin writes: ”[T]he State has an epistemology of its own, a political one that is imprinted upon the psyche and mind. A centralized State gives rise to a centralized society; a bureaucratic State to a bureaucratic society; a militaristic State to a militaristic society-and all develop the outlooks and psyches with the appropriate ’therapeutic’ techniques for adapting the individual to each.”. Such needs are affected by a multitude of non-linear events, a specific geopolitical location, economic circumstances as well as dominant ideologies and their discourses. The Finnish state, argues Ainur Elmgren, a Swedish-Finnish historian and researcher with Tatar roots, has aimed to create itself as a white nation-state8Elmgren 2022.. Kuokkanen points to the damaging aims of romantic nationalism, of creating one nation with one language and one people, and using for example the educational system as a tool to reach this goal9Kuokkanen 2022..
For the Indigenous Sámi, the nationalist project and nation-state building came to mean a violent process of forced assimilation of Sámi people into Finnishness and defining one part of Sápmi, the Sámi land stretching over Norway, Sweden and Russia, as Finnish. However, European scholars had started describing the Sámi people, sometimes confused with Finns, as animal-like much earlier.10Hieta 2006, 45–47. It is clear that animalization is a racist discourse linked to colonialism. Other groups of people also faced racism and assimilation into Finnishness, such as the Romani people.11Regarding Romani people in Finland, see e.g. Stark 2018; in a European context, Brooks, Clark & Rostas 2022. Furthermore, Karelian people were assimilated.
Even though questions of race have surfaced during recent years in Finland, both in academia and otherwise, tackling questions of race might still be difficult.12Different aspects of and approaches to race have been brought to light during the past years in Finland, and this body of research is growing. These discourses cannot however be regarded as mainstream or as having had a significant impact on dominant discourses in the country. One obstacle for discussing questions of race is that in Finland, as in Sweden, speaking about race is deemed ”something for the Nazis”, a discourse common in postwar Europe following the Holocaust13Lentin 2020, 64.. White-socialized scholars are sometimes wary of using the term, ”as you do not want anybody to think you are a Nazi”. Here, the creation of oneself as not-a-Nazi becomes a priority, as well as creating the self as “good” and ”innocent”.
As Caribbean-American CRT scholar Charles W. Mills points out, resistance to acknowledging questions and dynamics of race might take the shape of specific types of white ignorance, partly due to a willful erasure in memory and discourse of the white supremacist ideology already prevalent prior to World War II14Mills 2022, 222.. The discourse on race becomes taboo15See e. g. Lentin 2020, 64–65; Mills 2022; Hübinette & Wikström 2023, 1–5.. The result is that racial hierarchies – race understood as a social construction, not something biological – are difficult to discuss. This affects critical scholarship negatively, including the spaces where we as CAS researchers in a Finnish environment move.
Finland and Finnish nationalism provide multiple examples of the social construction of race. Namely, in the late 1800s Finns – and the Sámi – were defined by pseudoscientific race biology and the then popular ideology of eugenics as Asian, not as white and North European and/or Swedish.16See e. g. Kjellman & Eld 2019. This resulted in horrific practices, such as researchers in the late 1800s digging up Finns’ skulls and bringing them to museums and research institutes in Sweden for examination (the skulls were delivered back to Finland only in 2024)17Räisänen & Kujansuu 2024. The plundering of the graves was led by Gustaf Retzius (1842–1919), and the remains of the Finns were given back only after pressure from the Swedish Finnish community.. Historian and independent scholar Richard Hieta remarks that several Finnish nationalist scholars and scientists therefore started to describe Finns as a different race than the Sámi, underlining differences in skull shape and the Finns’ white European heritage18Hieta 2006, 86–87. The skulls were considered more important than the shade of the skin in creating a racial hierarchy (Kjellman & Eld 2019). . Sámi graves were also plundered, causing much pain and sorrow. Sámi skulls and other human remains have been archived in Finnish universities, museal and medical institutions along with other items extracted from these gravesites.19Ojala 2023, 116–117.
The process of repatriating Sámi items from museums across the world, including Finland, is still in process20See e. g. Siida 2025.. Collecting the skulls and body parts of those defined as Others was made possible by describing the Sámi, and previously also Finns, as ranking lower in the racial order; as uncivilized and as closer to animals and nature than other races, such as white North Europeans. The practice itself, publicly displaying human or animal Others in museums or exhibitions, dead or alive, is born in a colonial context displaying supremacy and dominance.
The white nation was created in Finland in multiple ways, through a process that reflected hegemonic ideologies such as eugenics, nationalism, imperialism, and colonialism. This, however, is outside the scope of this essay. In short, Finland, as a young nation, created itself in contraposition to the Russian Empire, to which it belonged until 1917, and later the imperialist USSR. It longed to belong to the West, or cultural ideals that were defined as Western.
Finland aimed for whiteness for example by asking the press not to publish images of ”Mongolian-looking” Finnish contestants during the 1932 Olympic Games, and by emphasizing that the Finnish candidate in the Miss Europe contest 1934 did not look Asian.21Elmgren 2022, 326–327. Folkhälsan, a public health organization of Swedish speaking Finland, aimed at upholding racial hygiene among Finnish Swedes in order for the population not to become “degenerate”22Bergenheim 2020, 1289–1290.. Education, health care and prizes for ”fit” parents adhering to eugenicist standards of racial superiority were used to uphold ideals of racial hygiene23Ibid., 1290.. The forced sterilization of trans people in Finland, a law that changed only in 2023, has been argued to be a remnant of earlier eugenic ideology as an ”American-European, transatlantic apparatus of power”, as Finnish researcher in gender studies Julian Honkasalo describes it. It facilitated an understanding of who was deemed fit or unfit for procreating; trans people were unnatural and unwanted.24Honkasalo 2020, 19.
The creation of the nation-state and hegemonic ideologies impacted in different ways those that lived within its borders, humans and animals alike. These relations, however, are not all the same, and are produced in specific contexts, and carry different meanings and power.
The concept of ”master identity” as a tool in the classroom
How can CAS, with a focus on animality, be taught and discussed in the classroom? First, we need to be able to speak about race. The racial construct in the Finnish context often comes as a surprise to white Finnish students. The reactions are similar to what Gloria Wekker, Surinamese-Dutch emeritus professor of anthropology and gender studies, describes in the Dutch context. Many white Dutch gender studies students have never learned about the social construction of race in their own context, and it can be difficult to grasp emotionally.25Wekker 2016, 76. Similarly, white Finnish students have expressed both shock and surprise in learning about the construction of race in Finland. Students have also expressed grief and anger in learning about the lives of colonized peoples and animals, not having learned about this past in the Finnish educational system. Those students who have an experience not racialized as white have usually not reacted to this with surprise. Most often they already understand structural racism and colonialism.
In various courses I have examined power using the concept of ”master identity”, a term formulated by Australian ecofeminist philosopher Val Plumwood (1939–2008)26Plumwood 1993.. The notion of master identity refers to a way of being and thinking in the world that is created by several intersecting systems of power, creating specific understandings of the self. According to Plumwood, ”mastering reason […] invades and colonises those others counted as nature”27Ibid., 191.. Embodied in the master identity, Plumwood identifies a Western idea of humanity that works in relation to or in opposition to animals and the environment, and functions as a normative ideal.28Ibid., 15. One might argue that intersectionality could be used for analysis in a similar manner. Intersectionality as a method for analysis stems from a specific context of radical Black feminist thought. The master identity focuses on the oppressor and emphasizes ”nature” in its understanding of domination. I have used the concept of the master identity as one tool to consider agency, discourse and ideology and to examine race as a social construct in the Finnish context, particularly in gender studies and CAS contexts. It enables a perspective where we, students and teachers, can recognize ourselves as part of power structures, not separated from them.
The master identity is anchored in global structures of power. Specifically, the master identity can be used as an example to pinpoint positions of power, as it focuses on the systems that create privileged individuals. Furthermore, the master identity provides an opportunity to analyze how we ourselves might be affected by dominant discourses and norms, for example hetero-patriarchy, capitalism, liberalism, and white supremacy. The master identity usually has a masculine character, but not necessarily. The more distance an individual is considered to have from nature and animals, the higher their status in a global hierarchy structured according to species, race, sexuality and gender. At the same time, the master identity exists in a dependent relationship with those defined as Others. Racism, colonialism and sexism, writes Plumwood, gain conceptual strength from defining certain groups of people as closer to animals or nature than others.29Ibid., 4. This is also something that Aph Ko (2019) and Amie Breeze Harper (2010) have extensively elaborated on in relation to race and white supremacy, especially within animal rights groups and campaigns. Richard A. Rogers has also used Plumwood’s definition of the master identity for the analysis of hegemonic masculinity in crisis, especially about vegetarian food and gender (Rogers 2008, 285).
Plumwood’s path to criticizing Western notions of humanity is interesting. In 1985, Plumwood, a white settler woman, went kayaking in Australia and was attacked by a crocodile. She survived. The incident initially evokes colonial images of Crocodile Dundee in a female form, a white adventurer and conqueror of untamed lands, humans, animals, and nature. Plumwood writes of the near-death experience as life-changing30Plumwood & Shannon 2012, 22.. During and after being held underwater by the crocodile, she came to understand that the crocodile considers her as food, nothing else, which she describes as a very humbling experience. The realization challenges the core of the culture where Plumwood grew up. She had unknowingly embraced the notion of the Western human self as a rational being, separated from and in dominance of nature.31Ibid., 11. Plumwood later writes in the essay ”Eye of the Crocodile”:
”How had I come to make this terrible mistake about myself, my place, my body? I asked myself, with that sinking sense of serious stupidity that marks many a final moment. Was it a philosophical mistake about identity, the self as disembodied consciousness dissociated from the food-providing self as material body? Or the idea that humans are special, above and apart from other animals?”32Ibid.
The experience shows in a very real way how, for the crocodile, Plumwood’s body is nothing but meat, not a human being that regards itself as untouchable. Plumwood’s work consequently focuses on the dualist worldview created by a Western philosophical tradition, found also in Christianity, that creates a specific kind of identity, a master identity, that considers itself special and separated from nature. This includes also white women, such as Plumwood.
In the context of my courses, this incident has sparked students’ interest. The students have interpreted it in different ways, sometimes, however, forgetting the settler colonial context and that Plumwood is a white woman. The incident raises many questions that are directly related to race, and that Plumwood herself asks: Why was she there in the first place? Did she have any knowledge about the dangers of the activity? Did she care about them? What made her go to a dangerous area and what made her believe that she was somehow untouchable? What follows is a contribution to ecofeminist theory that focuses on dominant ideologies and systems of oppression, specifically with nature in mind. The concept of master identity and its expressions, such as Plumwood’s experience, can thus be fruitful tools to think about Western domination of those defined closer to nature, but a deeper understanding of and emphasis on human relations and specific contexts is also needed.
One may choose to embrace the discourses, ideologies and privileges provided by a master identity, or act against them. For example, French-Tunisian intellectual and writer Albert Memmi, who is of Jewish origin, writes that the one who refuses the role of the colonizer finds himself in conflict with his own people at the same time as he finds others who are like-minded.33Memmi 1974, 65. It is possible to refuse to take part in an oppressive system, and it can be argued that CAS scholars or students do just that as they critique animal industries within a society that is built on normalizing violence towards animals. But it doesn’t mean they – we – exist outside of these systems of power.
One could certainly come to realize how power works in other ways than almost being eaten by a crocodile, but the incident reminds us that sometimes such realizations can be difficult to come by, and also that it can be understood in unintended ways if various human relations to land and animals are not underlined. The colonial history and present, and the consequent formations of the self, have also impacted ecofeminist ideas, and even though we can appreciate Plumwood’s theoretical contribution, one should be careful not to romanticize Plumwood as a self-sacrificing hero – such romanticization being a phenomenon also closely linked with whiteness.
The symbolic meaning of meat for a Finnish identity
If we look at an example in the Finnish context where dominant discourses are attached to specific identity formations, the killing of animals and eating red meat among men stand out. Meat-eating is still gendered, and to perform hegemonic masculinity correctly, one is expected to consume red meat. Consuming animals’ body parts also carries other symbolic values, especially in a Western cultural context.
In my forthcoming doctoral dissertation, I study veganism – the practice of avoiding animal products as far as possible – and how the killing and eating of animals has been constructed as a part of a European identity. The reason why Plumwood was so shocked by herself being seen as meat by an animal can be traced back to this notion of herself. In my work, I have drawn on American vegetarian feminist writer Carol J. Adams, who has for decades discussed the animal/human dichotomy. She has also drawn attention to the fact that in European culture, meat-eating is a symbolic act that highlights dominance and power in its capacity to kill and exploit both animals and humans deemed Other34Adams 1990, 105.. Promoting meat-eating and milk-drinking have been part of empire-building and biopolitical projects. These discourses are not isolated to empires and colonial centers, but have impacted also states like Finland.
Adams’ analysis of meat-eating and colonial expansion could gain more recognition, as could Indigenous scholars’ analyses of both colonial veganism and Indigenous veganism.35For further reading, see e. g. Mi’kmaq scholar Margaret Robinson (2013; 2016). I have not come across studies on veganism by Sámi scholars yet, but in her BA thesis, Máren-Elle Länsman (2019) has interviewed Sámi vegans and studied Sámi veganism, in which one lives as vegan otherwise, but eats meat or fish from Sápmi. Länsman explains what ”nature first” means as a reason for being vegan, an argument prevalent among her interviewees in the choices to be vegan, and the importance of reindeer to Sámi culture (Länsman 2019). Regarding Carol J. Adams, I join in the critique towards her essentialist understanding of gender. Studying the colonial aspects of meat-eating, as well as its implication for Finnish nation-building through biopolitics, necro/thanatopolitics and eugenics, provides an analysis of why veganism and care for animals have been considered, and still are considered, as threatening towards hegemonic discourses in the Finnish context.36Biopolitics is understood here according to French philosopher Michel Foucault, who described biopolitics as a shift in ways of state governance that took place in late 1800s. The aim of state governance became to facilitate life, doing so by softer means than previously, leading the subject to control itself. (Foucault 1978). Doing so, certain populations and individuals are facilitated ”out”. Foucault locates this way of governing to European states, while Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben later pointed to the need to understand biopolitics in relation with politics of death, calling this ”thanatopolitics” (Agamben 2017). Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe talks about ”necropolitics”: the slow facilitation of death, where subjects’ lives can be described as ”living dead” (Mbembe 2019). Historically, eating vegetables has had connotations of racial Others, femininity and weakness, and therefore veganism – to some extent – challenges heteronormative maleness and white identities. Avoiding eating animal products such as meat, milk and eggs directly affects animal lives. A possible decline in meat consumption would naturally also suggest economic loss for producers of animal products.
As a social practice, meat-eating is dependent on culture, history, and material resources. It is, admittedly, not only a Western phenomenon, but excessive meat-eating with an industrial way of farming animals was born in a Western and capitalist context. It is based on an ideological framework of domination of Others, including humans, animals and land. For instance, doctors, adhering to both patriarchy and eugenics, used to suggest eating meat as a suitable diet for white, European men.37Adams 1990, 53. Meat-eating, as well as cattle farming (in addition to growing and eating wheat), has been described as key in European colonization campaigns; as a guarantee of being able to take over land whose inhabitants have been described as weak and lazy ”rice-eaters”38Durmelat 2015, 121; Stănescu 2018, 105..
In this context, vegetables have been valued less than meat. Within Western patriarchies and elsewhere, they have been described as women’s food39Adams 1990, 50–52.. Overall, Adams writes that people in Europe have generally not wanted to be associated with food made of vegetables, i.e. food that has been classified as food for women, the underclass and colonized peoples40Ibid., 53.. Meat, in contrast, has been associated with superiority and mastery of nature. Meat is described as life-giving, and it symbolically and concretely strengthens a colonizing master identity. Considering these dominant ideologies, and the search for protection and power by the Finnish nation-state, it is not surprising that meat-eating and milk-drinking have been supported financially and promoted to the population through nutritional guidelines and programs for schools.
Even though this is now changing, and Finnish national nutritional guidelines today suggest a larger intake of vegetables, meat-eating is still often described as natural, enjoyable, and as something quintessentially Finnish by major meat companies41Häkli & Hakoköngäs 2022, 312.. Meat-eating is defended by those who oppose vegetarianism or veganism and these are often, though not only, white men. Political parties representing nationalist and right-wing ideologies, like the Finns Party, or parties representing producers, like the Center Party, have publicly defended the practice of meat-eating and identities such as ”white heterosexual meat-eating car-driving man”. Estonian sociologist researcher Kadri Aavik’s research on vegan men in Finland and Estonia shows that eating meat is still an important part of Finnishness and masculinity42Aavik 2021, 335.. Milk-drinking has also been marketed via Finnishness43Kaarlenkaski 2024.. Historically, however, Finnishness and meat-eating have not been linked; rather, meat used to be food for the elite and upper classes. A hundred years ago, people in Finland ate 50 kg less meat per person per year than now, when the amount is over 80 kg.
It can thus be argued that Finland has been aiming to create a master identity and a state with healthy subjects within a biopolitical project through the consumption of animal products. The practices of eating meat as well as drinking milk have been heavily promoted in Finnish state institutions. Both what to promote and how have been influenced by nationalist, hetero-patriarchal, speciesist, colonial and white supremacist discourses.
The role of using animal products to create a master identity in the Finnish context is now slightly changing, and it is important to remember that veganism can be co-opted by state or capitalist interests. In addition, there is a strand of veganism that is linked with whiteness, in a middle-class consumerist culture, as well as in wellness culture. Veganism could be incorporated in dystopian bio/necropolitical and ecofascist projects that aim to create healthy subjects for the state. However, dominant discourses such as linking meat-eating with power remain hegemonic.44The discourse about in vitro or ”laboratory” meat could be a topic for research, as Finland is already branding itself as a top developer of alternative proteins. Laboratory meat has been both defended and criticized by vegan scholars and writers within Critical Animal Studies already in 2012 by John Miller. The topic has not, as far as I am aware, been examined from a bio/necropolitical perspective in a Finnish context yet, but this could be very fruitful. For example, a press release published in 2024 states: ”Ivy Farm and Synbio Powerlabs sign an agreement to expand the production of artificial beef in Finland to the world’s largest facility suitable for this purpose” (STT 2024). The project is described as strengthening Finland’s position as an innovative expert developer of alternative proteins. It seems that this artificial meat could be produced and exported to areas with a demand for meat, such as countries in the Middle East. At the same time, these countries do not regulate food as strictly as the EU; lab-grown meat has not yet been classified as safe in the EU. This raises questions of ethics and of using certain individuals who live in areas with looser regulation as test subjects, before the products are deemed safe for European consumers. A stronger focus on global systems of power and exploitation, also of humans, within CAS in Finland could illuminate such tendencies.
Writing on dehumanization within Critical Animal Studies
The rich body of research on race can be helpful for broadening knowledge production within CAS in Finland. Recognizing how whiteness is socially constructed in the Finnish context could help deconstruct the dualism of ”human” vs. ”animal”, a discourse that is sometimes also reproduced within the field. This discourse regards humans as one oppressive category, without sensitivity for human hierarchies. Important discussions on how to address the category ”animal” exist, but as also only ”animal” and ”human” is being used, I use those categories in this essay.
Whiteness influences what research topics we deem important as well as the ways we write about them, also within CAS. Plumwood writes that the master identity exists in relation to a European definition of ”nature” and ”rationality” and to who is defined as ”human”45Plumwood 1993, 4.. The question of who is defined as human has been extensively discussed within postcolonial theory; Franz Fanon, a psychiatrist and political theorist from the French colony of Martinique, points this out in his 1963 work The Wretched of the Earth46Fanon 1963.. Within a European context, the Sámi people were depicted by scholars as ”satyrs, fairies and two-legged hairy beasts, which walked upright like men”. This image was constructed against the ”civilized” elite already in early modern Europe47Hieta 2006, 51..
Defining some humans as closer to animals than others dehumanizes them, which is partly why this notion of animal-ness is problematic. It constructs a person who has less rights, is without worth and outside of the sphere of those who are counted as humans. This exposes these groups of people to violence, exploitation, colonialism, and even genocide. One might ask: how would regarding animals as equals with humans affect human-human relations? What can bringing colonialism to the discussion look like in the Finnish academic context, and within CAS in particular?
One example is how the network for CAS in Finland has supported the boycott of Israeli academic institutions and opposed the genocide committed by the state of Israel in Gaza in general. The network published an article that we wrote together with other Finnish CAS researchers Helinä Ääri, Lumi Kauppinen and Sanna Karhu in 2023, after the Israeli military had entered Gaza.48Högback, Karhu, Kauppinen & Ääri 2023. The article repeated the urgent call to action by Palestinian academics in Gaza.49Birzeit University Union of Professors and Employees 2023. In a Finnish context, this call was echoed by the antiracist network Raster (2023). It was possible to publish such an article on the CAS blog, but not without long discussions. This tension indicates a need for further engagement with CRT within the Finnish context.
Years before, the Israeli military had repeatedly engaged in pro-vegan discourse in other to make the military seem ethical to Western audiences. In the article, we describe the Israeli state’s co-option of veganism and of the – at the time – terrifying and intensified repetition of the discourse in which Palestinians are described as human animals. The discourse had existed for a long time and is still today used to dehumanize Palestinians to justify a war against them. Our article was written in an environment of academic repression, where most universities in Finland were against supporting Palestine. It was written during the first months of the genocide, when the discourse was prevented at university level. Mentioning Palestinians and their experiences was heavily questioned by academics of all levels in the university hierarchy using Zionist discourses, and police patrolled academic events discussing the topic. Critique against the state of Israel was heavily moderated and at times silenced. Writing together with colleagues from CAS was a good experience in this climate. The directed pro-vegan discourses, or propaganda by the Israeli state, could thus be publicly countered.
With this, I would like to remind the reader that sometimes, when one reads a text, especially in an academic context, it is illuminating to think of the process of writing behind the text. That process itself can be a battle of discourses, and the outcomes of these contests – particularly if it means being explicitly for discourses that face heavy criticism – might have real consequences for some of the subjects of those discourses. Words truly impact the lives of both humans and animals.
As writers of that specific article, we did not risk anything in particular by writing our text; perhaps some collaborations or funding in the future. However, this environment and culture did have serious consequences especially for Palestinian researchers – although not only for them – who were speaking about the realities for Palestinians in Gaza50Duong-Pedica 2023.. The students and researchers’ solidarity movement that gained momentum at the time should be commended for making the Palestinian cause visible and for taking on and placing pressure on many Finnish universities that are collaborating with Israeli universities.
Universities are, in the Finnish context, funded mostly by the state as well as by corporate means. Universities cooperate internationally, and economic and security interests affect discourses, for example regarding Palestine, as well as research itself. These discourses and practices are naturally ideologically motivated. Even though CAS is a marginal field of research, dominant discourses affect the work. This is just one example of such discursive clashes, and it is important to keep in mind the context itself. Regarding animals in terms of equality, freedom and agency could lead to questions about what is actually meant by ”human”. Studying human relations affected by the linking of some humans to animality may lead one to question further the construction and existence of hierarchies.
Conclusion
Theory cannot be separated from practice, and thus, engaging CRT can take place in different arenas and take different forms, as I have shown in this essay. The master identity can be used to deconstruct systems of thought that stem from a Western context. CRT offers a rich body of research and helps us understand resistance to discussing race. Analyzing the building of nation-states and the history of eugenics, nationalism and biopolitics, reveals that this supposedly distant past is still very present. This past-that-still-is-present affects different humans and animals in many ways.
CAS approaches the animal question in a different way than HAS, and its strength lies in that it both indicates serious ethical problems in contemporary society as well as aspires for change. In order not to recreate a human/animal dualism within the field of CAS, I have in this essay drawn attention to what Critical Animal Studies could gain from engaging further with Critical Race Theory, particularly in the Finnish context. I also illustrated some tensions that might arise from this work. Further avenues for research could thus be a deeper interrogation how animalization has functioned within the Finnish context in creating hierarchies, through studying for example archival material, medical texts and national nutritional recommendations. An Indigenous perspective on animals and human-animal relations would also enrich the research in CAS within this specific geography.
In the context of academic discourse and commentary on ongoing political events, engaging in anticolonial discourse might thus expose places of tension. Discussion on the genocide in Gaza is an example where such theory and practice has clashed with dominant discourses. Said conflicts can be laborious. However, they display the positive power inherent in the counterdiscourses that provide alternatives to the hegemonic truth. Through that, change is also possible.
