Eco-pedagogy, total liberation and responsible planetary citizens

This qualitative research study explored how family, society, and the education system, by neglecting to teach animal ethics to children, encourage speciesist and anthropocentric thoughts. Moreover, this study also investigates the factors that played a critical role in making animal rights activists sensitive toward justice for animals and the barriers and misconceptions that discouraged human rights activists from being involved in veganism and animal ethics. I used Critical Animal Studies (CAS) as a theoretical framework to better understand human and non-human animal relationships. CAS helped to employ intersectionality and ethics of responsibility to challenge the dominant speciesism and anthropocentrism in human and nonhuman animal relationships. I conducted semi-structured interviews with eight Iranian human rights activists and seven Iranian animal rights activists ranging in age from 20 - 35 years. The qualitative research revealed that all participants started to get involved in human or nonhuman animal social justice activism due to experiencing oppression and human rights abuse under a religious dictatorship in Iran. Human rights activist participants never had the chance to learn about speciesism through family, society, and the education system. They have so many misconceptions about veganism and animal ethics, and these misconceptions make them avoid joining the movement. They understand the intersectionality of oppression, but they don't bring animals into their moral circle. I argue animal rights activists who want to create an alliance with other social justice movements for the total liberation of human and non-human animals from oppression should show them how the issue of justice for human and non-human animals is intertwined and interlinked.