Telling Tails: The Promises and Pitfalls of Language and Narratives in Animal Advocacy Efforts

Using a feminist theoretical perspective and drawing on examples from Canada and the United States, this Article considers the promises and pitfalls of language and narrative in the context of animal advocacy efforts. Because the animal advocacy movement faces an uphill battle on a number of fronts, leveraging language and narrative more conscientiously can help enhance its success. Elucidating the equivocal nature of the premises on which our current social and legal conceptualization of nonhuman animals lies can prompt a shift in the dominant modes of thinking about nonhuman animals, thereby stimulating meaningful change in their treatment. However , it is not only the message that matters, but also how that message is conveyed. Narratives offer a potentially more compassionate, less antagonistic way of drawing attention to nonhuman animal suffering in order to trigger an interruption in established ways of thinking that posit that nonhuman animals are outside of the realm of moral considerability and, therefore, outside the bounds of legal protection.