Rethinking p olitical communication with animals: Greeting as a political practice

1. Rethinking political communication with animals:Greeting as a political practice Eva Meijer Universiteit van Amsterdam

2. Communication in Zoopolis • Animals as political actors (Donaldson and Kymlicka) • New view of both animals and politics • Humans and other animals communicate • We need a non-anthropocentric view of language • To conceptualize existing encounters and as a foundation for new relationships

3. Language-games and greeting • Language as a collection of language-games (Wittgenstein) • Human-animal language-games • Interspecies greeting

4. Greeting as a political practice • Greeting as a social practice in human-baboon relations (Smuts) • Greeting as political act and condition for political communication (Young) • Greeting as a political practice in human-macaque border conflicts (Yeo and Neo)

5. E.R.Meijer@uva.nl