Working Group on Animals in the Law and Humanities (Adam Iggers)

Working Group on Animals in the Law and Humanities  Presents:

Guest: Adam Iggers

Title: Amplified Indigenous Ontologies: Towards a Tactical Resolution of the Tension Between Animal Rights and Indigenous Rights

Abstract: This paper examines the enduring tension between the animal rights movement—which seeks to end human-inflicted suffering of non-human animals—and Indigenous rights movements that defend cultural practices involving the taking of animal life. It critiques existing attempts by animal rights scholars, notably Will Kymlicka, Sue Donaldson, and Claire Jean Kim, to reconcile these positions, arguing that such efforts often privilege animal rights frameworks and thereby reproduce colonial hierarchies while undermining efforts to reduce animal suffering. Drawing on Indigenous ontologies from Mi’kmaq and Kluane traditions and on models of societal transformation borrowed from transition theory, the paper proposes a tactical shift: instead of challenging Indigenous hunting practices, animal rights advocates should amplify Indigenous understandings of reciprocal, respectful human–animal relations. These ontologies disrupt the dissociation and commodification underpinning the animal industrial complex, which is the principal source of global animal suffering. By tactically aligning animal liberation with decolonization, the paper contends that amplifying Indigenous worldviews can more effectively advance both the reduction of animal suffering and the dismantling of settler-colonial structures.

Bio: Adam Iggers graduated from the J.D. program at the University of Toronto Jackman Faculty of Law in 2023. He is currently an Associate at the law firm Paliare Roland. He took Animals and the Law at Jackman Law in 2022 and his Supervised Upper Year Research Paper (SUYRP) “Amplified Indigenous Ontologies: Towards a Tactical Resolution of the Tension Between Animal Rights and Indigenous Rights” was completed as a component of the JD Certificate in Aboriginal Law, winning the Justin Basinger Memorial Award (2023). His paper has been accepted for publication in the Indigenous Law Journal.