Category Archives: News

Chapter 2 places great emphasis on giving a clear definition of care and explaining its applications to animals. Care is informed “by ideas about who animals are and how they should be treated” (49). Moving past the basic needs of … Continue reading →

My favorite part of this reading was my ability to cocreate knowledge with Lara. This is a very complicated text. One that places a great responsibility on the audience to engage with, navigate, and theorize alongside the writing. It is … Continue reading →

In Elan Abrell’s “Saving Animals,” the author offers valuable insights into animal sanctuaries and their caregivers as models for moving away from the objectification of animals and towards recognizing their subjectivity. I appreciate the effort of Abrell’s presenting sanctuaries’ perspective … Continue reading →

This ethnography mentions the dichotomy of attitudes/treatment of animals between industrial farms vs. sanctuaries. Did Abrell ever research within zoos? I am curious as they straddle conservation and consumption efforts. Similarly, zoos place animals in a weird human-animal/property continuum.They also … Continue reading →

I am responsible for leading the class discussion on Chapter 2 on Wednesday so I will give a brief overview of Abrell’s Saving animals: multi species ecologies of rescue and care introduction with regard to the major themes of rights and property. … Continue reading →

In this reading, Angela Garcia explores how addiction, poverty, and healthcare are all interconnected in New Mexico. She does this by bringing a more nuanced understanding to this topic, extending it as a systemic issue and not an individual problem. … Continue reading →

In this reading, Ana-Marine Lara gives us a unique look into the intersection of being Black and queer and how they present themselves in the context of Caribbean spiritual practices. It was really interesting to see that these cultural practices … Continue reading →

In the reading, Abrell talks about the relationship between humans and other animals in the realm of animal rescue/care. I thought that this reading was a really interesting look at ethical practices with animals, explaining the potential humans have to … Continue reading →

Elan Abrell’s ethnography explores U.S. animal sanctuaries, animal rights, and animal autonomy. I found his ethnography interesting because it expands the traditional definition of anthropology is the study of what makes us human to the study of what makes living … Continue reading →

In her introduction, Lara frames Black decolonization, queer freedom, and Black sovereignty as the same meaning. I thought this was interesting because, although these three terms are similar, they exist separately and are used differently among many narratives of abolition … Continue reading →

Since the beginning of time, we have come to recognize the progression of people’s different sexualities and the positive change in norms presented towards races. However, this only applies to the United States, whereas many other third world developing countries … Continue reading →

According to Ana-Maurine Lara’s “Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty,” people are disciplined into gendered, racialized, and sexualized norms. This discipline affects the body-land differently based on racial imaginaries. The concept of body-land is not just the physical mass of one’s body, … Continue reading →

I found it most interesting that Dr. Lara points out the inability for US-readers to fully ‘immerse’ ourselves into the contents of the ofrenda, even if the reader is also queer and Black. Outside of the text itself, I guess … Continue reading →

Anna-Maurine creatively uses the word “body-land” to emphasize the connection between the body and land and its meaning regarding indigeneity, queerness, and black sovereignty. She uses colons to connect different layers of meanings of body-land to articulate how inseparable the … Continue reading →

Ana-Maurine Lara’s ethnography on queer, black, and indigenous life in the Dominican Republic was different from the ethnographies we’ve read before in that Lara writes in a more poetic and literary style. Her use of footnotes also differs from other … Continue reading →

I think the concept of an arrivant state is particularly insightful as it highlights the intersection of colonialism, indigeneity, and violence. It is a state of affairs that exists in the United States, but we fail to consider these intersections … Continue reading →