Towards a critical posthumanist social work: Trans-species ethics of ecological justice, nonviolence and love

This chapter outlines an Aboriginal and eco-feminist ethico-theoretical perspective on the nature of the helping profession’s relationship with nonhuman animals. Speciesist language is indicative of power dynamics based on a dualism between human and nonhuman animals. This dualism legitimises the use of nonhuman animals for a range of purposes, including to help people. In discussing the helping profession’s understanding of the nature of the human–animal relationship, there needs to be an examination of the invisibility of human dominance in language referring to nonhuman animals. Further, the persistence of human privilege related to continuing to use animals, even with knowledge of the harm and injustice done to animals, must be examined. A framework of interspecies justice based on ecocentric ethics is proposed.