Sentientism | "Not personhood... beingness" - Professor Maneesha Deckha@UVic - Sentientism 209 @Sentientism | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Maneesha (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/maneesha-deckha) is a law professor at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada @UVic . Her work initially spanned human rights, injustice, feminist theory, post-colonial & decolonial theory and later, inter-species justice and its links and intersectionality with human social justice. Maneesha founded and directs the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University @ASRI-UVic . She is the author of the book “Animals as Legal Beings”.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
00:55 Welcome
- Maneesha on The Animal Turn and Think Like a Vegan podcasts hosted by:
- Claudia Hirtenfelder episode youtu.be/wnTkXgDhbUw
- Emilia Leese episode youtu.be/AlL1wV_pmLk
- #SentientistEducation sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-education
03:05 Maneesha's Intro
- "To consider how different oppressions for different groups, both human and animal and even other non-humans, are systemically structured and are related and overlap - and also how they might be different"
- Working long before and since the "Animal Turn" in academia "when not too many people were discussing animals"
- Research: animals legal subjectivity, animal ethics, feminist perspectives "connecting work... looking at issues of gender, race, culture, species in tandem"
- "Addressing questions that affect women, that affect children, that affect animals - through that intersectional lens"
- Starting and Directing the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University
- Public facing projects e.g. the "A Deeper Kindness" documentary onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/animal-law-films
06:55 What's Real?
- Growing up in a Hindu household... celebrations, stories
- The radical diversity of Hinduism "all these gods and goddesses and quite a few of them are multi-species... Lord Ganesh"
- Unviersity courses on Hinduism and Buddhism
- "I always looked at that... as myth"
- The ethos of learning... being introduced to modernist, scientific & secular views
- "I approached the world in a more secular, atheist frame... atheist understood as being compatible with Hinduism... not really believing in these gods and goddesses but somewhat happy that these stories are there... the diversity of thought that it brings up"
- "When we have a physical sensation or emotional sensation that it's real... that pain is real... that suffering is real even if it's psychological"
- Learning about social construction and the influence of language at university "we cannot access... reality... without mediating that access through concepts, through language"
- "We can't really know something 100% for certain... because it depends on how we frame it on the interiority of our mind which of course almost always depends on language"
- Becoming a mother "I had biological & inter-relational experiences with my infant & also while pregnant that I felt weren't based on language" so had "a personal experience of contesting what I had so naturally and quickly imbibed doing university studies"
- Pain scholars: "pain just eludes language"... "has made me be so responsive to pain not just in myself but in others - regardless of whether one is human or not"
- That response motivating an interest in human social justice issues, "then those outside of the human category and the pain and suffering they are experiencing"
- "I am very sensitive and it affects me deeply when someone is in pain and suffering"
- "The pain & suffering that flows from the violence that is so ubiquitious in society against animals and others is real..."
- "A prime example right now is the situation of the atrocities in Gaza"
- "Animals that we don't see what is going on... they are being killed as we're speaking... because we use language to mediate that type of violence so we don't see it"
- "As a younger person just out of university I would have said social construction is 100% of everything... now I wouldn't take that view..."
- "While of course positionality is important it is not the end all be all..."
26:30 What and Who Matters?
37:25 Who Matters?
01:07:47 A Better World?
01:15:50 Follow Maneesha
- uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/deckha.php
- A Deeper Kindness: youtu.be/Kg6QcF9rWk0
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Maneesha (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/maneesha-deckha) is a law professor at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada @UVic . Her work initially spanned human rights, injustice, feminist theory, post-colonial & decolonial theory and later, inter-species justice and its links and intersectionality with human social justice. Maneesha founded and directs the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University @ASRI-UVic . She is the author of the book “Animals as Legal Beings”.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI.
00:00 Clips!
00:55 Welcome
- Maneesha on The Animal Turn and Think Like a Vegan podcasts hosted by:
- Claudia Hirtenfelder episode youtu.be/wnTkXgDhbUw
- Emilia Leese episode youtu.be/AlL1wV_pmLk
- #SentientistEducation sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-education
03:05 Maneesha's Intro
- "To consider how different oppressions for different groups, both human and animal and even other non-humans, are systemically structured and are related and overlap - and also how they might be different"
- Working long before and since the "Animal Turn" in academia "when not too many people were discussing animals"
- Research: animals legal subjectivity, animal ethics, feminist perspectives "connecting work... looking at issues of gender, race, culture, species in tandem"
- "Addressing questions that affect women, that affect children, that affect animals - through that intersectional lens"
- Starting and Directing the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University
- Public facing projects e.g. the "A Deeper Kindness" documentary onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/animal-law-films
06:55 What's Real?
- Growing up in a Hindu household... celebrations, stories
- The radical diversity of Hinduism "all these gods and goddesses and quite a few of them are multi-species... Lord Ganesh"
- Unviersity courses on Hinduism and Buddhism
- "I always looked at that... as myth"
- The ethos of learning... being introduced to modernist, scientific & secular views
- "I approached the world in a more secular, atheist frame... atheist understood as being compatible with Hinduism... not really believing in these gods and goddesses but somewhat happy that these stories are there... the diversity of thought that it brings up"
- "When we have a physical sensation or emotional sensation that it's real... that pain is real... that suffering is real even if it's psychological"
- Learning about social construction and the influence of language at university "we cannot access... reality... without mediating that access through concepts, through language"
- "We can't really know something 100% for certain... because it depends on how we frame it on the interiority of our mind which of course almost always depends on language"
- Becoming a mother "I had biological & inter-relational experiences with my infant & also while pregnant that I felt weren't based on language" so had "a personal experience of contesting what I had so naturally and quickly imbibed doing university studies"
- Pain scholars: "pain just eludes language"... "has made me be so responsive to pain not just in myself but in others - regardless of whether one is human or not"
- That response motivating an interest in human social justice issues, "then those outside of the human category and the pain and suffering they are experiencing"
- "I am very sensitive and it affects me deeply when someone is in pain and suffering"
- "The pain & suffering that flows from the violence that is so ubiquitious in society against animals and others is real..."
- "A prime example right now is the situation of the atrocities in Gaza"
- "Animals that we don't see what is going on... they are being killed as we're speaking... because we use language to mediate that type of violence so we don't see it"
- "As a younger person just out of university I would have said social construction is 100% of everything... now I wouldn't take that view..."
- "While of course positionality is important it is not the end all be all..."
26:30 What and Who Matters?
37:25 Who Matters?
01:07:47 A Better World?
01:15:50 Follow Maneesha
- uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/deckha.php
- A Deeper Kindness: youtu.be/Kg6QcF9rWk0
& much more... see sentientism.info for full notes.
#sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
