Letícia Guimarães Alambert

In The Animal That Therefore I Am (2002), Jacques Derrida reveals the seriousness of the treatment afforded to animals of other species in relation to the past. The period to which Derrida refers, coincides with the consolidation of capitalism as the dominant economic system. This project seeks to bring the analysis of the systematic exploitation of animals of other species into dialogue with critical philosophical perspectives on capitalism, as well as to establish a continuity between the exploitation of human lives and bodies and those of other animals. By rethinking the invisible, silenced, or concealed absurdity of what occurs daily to other animals, the aim is to intertwine ethical and political dimensions beyond anthropocentric limits. It becomes necessary to understand the roots of such exploitation and the possibilities of overcoming it through the study of the concept of consciousness, of education as conscientization, and of related notions. In short, a contingent becoming refers to the possibility of thinking in the place of the other, “to the ethics, the politics that must be referred to this experience of compassion” (Derrida, 2002, p. 53).