Human Primacy Identity Politics, Nonhuman Animal Experiments and the Oppression of Nonhuman Animals

Abstract

In Britain, in 2006, 3.01 million ‘procedures’ were performed on non-human animals, an increase on the 2.9 million performed in 2005 (Pro-Test 2007). In citing these Home Office figures, Pro-Test (2007) (a lobby launched in Britain in January 2006 to promote experiments¹ on nonhuman animals), declares that it ‘welcome[s] statistics on animal research in 2006’, even though the figures indicate an increase. How can Pro-Test take this position? In making an argument against such experimentation I contend that Pro-Test’s position is based in the acceptance of ‘human’ as having primacy over ‘animal’,² since Pro-Test grounds its case in the assumed pre-eminence of human needs over those of nonhuman animals. I maintain that assumed human primacy is used by Pro-Test as a justification for the exploitation of nonhuman animals for human benefit. My purpose is to draw attention to the ways in which Pro-Test seeks to validate experiments on nonhuman animals by using discourses that imply hierarchical differences between human and nonhuman animals; such discourses inform the ‘in’ identity of ‘human’ and the ‘otherness’ of all nonhuman animals. Following Jacques Derrida’s claim that exclusionary identity is an act of power (Laclau 1990) I maintain that this is a form of human primacy identity politics, not based in overcoming oppression and inequality, but based in continued inequality and the sustained oppression of nonhuman animals.

In this chapter I do not explore connections between ‘systems of domination’ (e.g. how male white supremacy pervades the lives of black people, women and nonhuman animals) (see Adams 1990, 1995).