"CIUDAD ESPECISTA"- Montevideo, Uruguay

What is "Ciudad Especista"?

It is a project that aims to investigate from photography the ways in which speciesism manifests itself in public spaces in the city as well as to make a record of the various practices and situations that are part of our daily lives and that we naturalize. I focus particularly on the city of Montevideo, in Uruguay, where I have lived since I was born until now, but also other routes emerge from time to time. Currently the medium through which my work is disseminated is the Instagram platform.

I think it is important to clarify the term speciesist, because maybe not everyone is familiar with it and it is essential for the understanding of the project and its purpose. 

Speciesism is a type of discrimination, in this case on the basis of species. It implies not considering some animals as having the right to life, freedom and the capacity to make their own decisions.

Even among animal species we make differences, for example, dogs, cats and horses have a somewhat broader consideration by humans, although they are also victims of speciesist violence.

But other species, such as cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, rats, among others, do not have the same consideration. We could say that there are hierarchies when considering other animals as subjects of rights. And, in relation to what do these asymmetries occur? To the relationship that the human being has with these animals.

It is anthropocentrism that enables the possibility of speciesism to exist. We perpetuate the belief that other animals were born to serve the human being, who somehow considers himself superior and with the right to use them as objects, as properties that are in the world by and for him. It is no coincidence that those animals that are closest to humans are the ones that have the greatest consideration on their part.

Speciesist violence is the violence we exercise towards other animals. It is the implementation of speciesism. We can define it according to Romina Kachanoski as the "asymmetrical and oppressive relationship bond that humans exercise towards other animals". It is a type of social violence, like sexist violence, racist violence and homophobic violence. 

How does it emerge?

The project was born at the end of 2020. I have been working as a freelance photographer for a couple of years now. Particularly street photography is a genre that interests me a lot; the same could be said of photojournalism and documentary genre.

But when I went out without a specific purpose to walk the streets, or also in my day to day life on my way to work or running errands at the neighborhood fair, I began to realize that my gaze was very focused on these naturalized forms in which speciesism is expressed. And as I usually carry my cell phone or camera with me at all times, I began to make these records a bit spontaneously.

I then began to try out this new way of looking at the city, and in the process I realized that in some way it was not so new, because since I was a teenager, when I first came into contact with antispeciesism - thanks precisely to a group that spread the word on the streets with flyers - my view of the world changed. It was no longer the same as before. 

I began to question what was not in doubt, "the obvious", ranging from the most immediate, such as the way we feed ourselves, to the relationship we have with other animals at every moment of our lives and the forms of exploitation and violence that we exercise and are exercised on them. And when you make that change in the look, which is not only a new way of looking but also of feeling, thinking and, consequently, acting, it changes your being and being in the world in a radical way. So from that moment on I feel the strong need to do something from a very small place, probably, but equally necessary, which is to make visible the injustice that naturalized speciesist violence represents.

Another important point was a workshop in which I participated in mid 2020 on feminist urbanism dictated by the collective Habitadas, which is a collective here in Uruguay that seeks to problematize, investigate and generate positive actions in relation to the ways of designing and inhabiting the territories. 

And in that workshop I came into contact with ideas such as that the planning of public spaces is designed from and towards a male experience, which affects women and other dissident identities; and, above all, that public space is not neutral. Take, for example, public restrooms, bus stops, the simplicity of walking down the street at night. All of these have different implications if you are a woman. If we add to gender other variables such as ethnicity, age, functional diversity, social class and sexual identity, among others, the issue becomes even more complex.

Immediately I could not help thinking about a variable that I think was missing, which is the species variable, and what happens with the non-human animals that live in the city; how is our coexistence with them in this territorial context, with the dynamics that occur in the city that are very different from those of the countryside or the seaside resort; what kind of limitations and violence we exert on their bodies, their behaviors, their freedoms. 

And in parallel to all this, there is another event that I consider fundamental in the development of the project and of my own experience as a human being who is linked to animals living in the city, which was the circumstance of living with a dog for a while and taking care of it.

That coexistence meant putting into practice something that theoretically I had already been reflecting about pet ownership. Going from the idea that an animal is a pet -which is a word that in its etymological origin refers to a talisman or amulet, that is to say, an object-, of which I am also its "owner" -that is, it would be my property-, to understanding that I live with that animal and that in any case he is my companion, for which I am responsible, but not his owner. All this generated thousands of contradictions and questions, many of which I still have not resolved.

Purposes 

One of the objectives of the project is to make visible, question and rethink our practices and links with other animals in the context of the city.

Since these speciesist practices are so naturalized, it seems necessary to make them explicit as what they are, violence on the bodies and people of other animals. 

The dog tied to a post, the animals for sale in a veterinarian's shop, the animal body parts on display for our consumption, the cages that keep birds captive, among other speciesist logics that have been imposed on us as customs, in the name of what is normal, healthy, productive, profitable and other apparently unquestionable truths.

It seems urgent to me to question what we have been taught since we were little, what is right or wrong, or what should be so by nature.

And these violences, although historical and even ancestral, I could say, are framed in a patriarchal and capitalist system, and this for me is not a minor detail.

This belief that the others are objects or properties that are there for our consumption is a logic that is related to the capitalist logics that also cross links and ways of affecting others.

Moreover, the everyday, which is apparently smaller or irrelevant, is at some point more accessible, simpler to transform. Direct action on everyday reality is something we can all do to a greater or lesser extent. 

Future projections

I would like to expand the horizons of the project, something I have begun to do slowly. Including also questions that invite reflection and exchange, reference texts, philosophical concepts, research in other spaces where we have also naturalized speciesism, as for example in games and toys. I was not surprised to find cell phone games that propose to children to build their own zoo, raise animals in a farm or roast a virtual chicken carcass.

The game is not innocuous and we owe ourselves deep reflections on the kind of messages that are transmitted and what children are taught when animals are still represented as objects at our service, as beings without will that are there totally reified as commodities to satisfy our needs. And this can be transferred to other languages and registers such as books, films, music, etc. 

Florencia Castelar Figera @ciudadespecista

Published in October 2022

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