Fraundorfer, M (2018) The Rediscovery of Indigenous Thought in the Modern Legal System: The Case of the Great Apes. Global Policy, 9 (1). pp. 17-25. ISSN 1758-5880
Abstract
In times of human‐inflicted ecological crises and the mass extinction of countless species, it becomes ever more urgent to redefine how we perceive ourselves and our relationship with the planet's ecosystems and other species. Indigenous cosmologies harbour perspectives fundamentally different from those of modern political and philosophical thought and might serve as guideposts for alternative visions. By looking at the on‐going legal developments in the worldwide struggle for legal personhood for the great apes, this article argues that we are witnessing an unintended (but welcome) introduction of several aspects of indigenous cosmologies to modern political and legal thought. The animal rights movement has achieved a historic breakthrough when in 2016 an Argentine judge recognised the female chimpanzee Cecilia as a legal person. The article briefly summarises how over the last few decades scholars and animal rights movements have gradually questioned the main tenets of the human‐animal divide. Thereafter, the article introduces what Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro calls Amerindian perspectivism: a concept based on a distributive, situational and perspectivist relationship between humans and animals common in Amerindian cultures. Then, the article shows that the on‐going redefinition of great apes as legal persons is reminiscent of key tenets of Amerindian perspectivism.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Fraundorfer, M. (2018), The Rediscovery of Indigenous Thought in the Modern Legal System: The Case of the Great Apes. Glob Policy, 9: 17-25. doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12517, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12517. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 21 Nov 2018 11:51 |
Last Modified: | 20 Nov 2019 01:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/1758-5899.12517 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:138936 |