But in the Western world animals have for many centuries been defined as fundamentally different and ontologically separate from humans, and although explicit criteria for establishing human-animal difference have changed over time, all such criteria routinely use humans as the standard for judgement. The concern is, can animals do what humans do? rather than, can humans do what animals do? Thus judged, animals are inferior beings.
…[U]rban simulacra such as zoos and wildlife parks have increasingly mediated human experience of animal life. Real live animals can actually come to be seen as less than authentic since the terms of authenticity have been so thoroughly redefined. the distanciation of wild animals has simultaneously stimulated the elaboration of a romanticized wildness used as a means to peddle consumer goods, sell real estate, and sustain the capital accumulation process, reinforcing urban expansion and environmental degradation
Who can be an urban ecological citizen? Who has “rights to the city,” as well as obligations, duties, and the necessary virtues, to play a legitimate role in keeping it healthy? Traditionalists argue that citizenship involves enforceable contracts. But moral as well as contractual, legal aspects matter, resulting in an ecological citizenship that includes nonhumans. Such citizenship revolves around the pursuit of ecological justice and is underpinned by an ethics of care… This ethic is not rooted in some generalized compassion or sense of responsibility, but rather in co-evolutionary processes… Citizenly relations thus stretch across the nature-society divide.
