animawiki

​An Academic Virtual Conference

​Rome, 9-11 June 2021. Free online event

https://www.veganismparadigmshift.com

The conference gathers researches working in different disciplines to discuss the possibility of a radical change – social, economic, legal, environmental and, underlying all these, conceptual and ethical – in the relationship between humans and other animals.

The question in the title refers to the possibilities, as well as the challenges, of radically re-configuring ways of thinking of and living with animals, in opposition to a dominant framework in which animals are taken primarily as resources for human benefit.

​The conference takes place over three days, in four panels divided thematically to mark key areas of enquiry related to this re-thinking and restructuring. Thus, the conference aims at combining the theoretical foundations of the problem with its practical aspects. ​ Finally and importantly, the concept of ‘vegan’ used here is intended more broadly than what is common in public and academic debates, and still as very much open-ended. Veganism is understood as embracing the re-thinking of the human-animal relationship away from exploitation, in all of the forms which this relationship may take, without taking for granted the exclusion of any beneficial interaction with other animals, and in a way that is as holistic as possible.