Rethinking political communication with animals:
Greeting as a political practice
Eva MeijerUniversiteit van Amsterdam
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
Language-games and greeting
• Language as a collection of language-games (Wittgenstein)
• Human-animal language-games• Interspecies greeting
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)