Rethinking Disability and Animal Kinship: Learned Adjustment and Interspecies Care

What can disabled-animal relationships reveal about systems of oppression and interspecies coexistence? This paper addresses this question by examining the woefully undertheorised alliance between disabled bodyminds and animals, which remains limited to discussions of support animals. This paper argues that examining disabled-animal relationships reveals crucial insights: the politics of euthanasia and how 'quality-of-life' judgments operate across species; the ethical complexities of anthropomorphism and interspecies communication; how animal kinship opens alternative frameworks to human-centred understandings of care/value. By foregrounding reciprocity rather than utility, critical animal studies and disability studies can illuminate oppressive hierarchies, challenge anthropocentric and ableist frameworks, and expand possibilities for coexistence beyond human benefit.

Animals are crucial to what it means to be human. The historic dehumanisation of disabled and racialised subjectivities has resulted in a synonymy with animals; horrifying racist/ableist sentiments strip minorities of their humanity, designating them as subhuman. Yet crucial to this ideology is the belief that animals have a less worthy existence. Disabled people and animals are especially made equivalent, ‘presented as beasts and as burdens’ (Taylor 2017). Such elision is identifiable regarding disabled animals; ableism isn’t exclusive to humans: ‘the able body that ableism perpetuates and privileges is always not only able-bodied but human’(ibid). Disabled animals are posited as devoid of value, with euthanasia presented as the kindest option. Our understanding of animals is shaped by the belief that only the strongest/fittest animals survive, yet, research revealed animals undergo what de Waal terms ‘learned adjustment’, similar to cognitive empathy, whereby non-disabled animals comprehend the reduced capacities of their disabled companions, supporting and protecting them. Animals offer disabled people connection free from ableist judgment, providing meaningful kinship and social mediation. While disabled individuals often anthropomorphise pets, valuing reciprocal care given difficulty finding safety with humans, this raises questions about where kinship begins and projection ends.