Why Feral

Abstract

Feral animals¹ are generally described as domestic animals that have returned to a wild state. Typically, these animals are viewed as invasive species that destroy the natural or native makeup of the environment they enter. Managers debate over the best way to eradicate or control such species in order to allow the environment to recover or be restored to its “appropriate,” predisturbed state. The numerous levels of cultural and racial bias, the degree of arrogant anthropocentrism, and the assumed “needy nature” that such helping professions and conservation strategies often carry, deserve a lengthy study of their own but that is not the focus of this chapter. Biases and limitations of the knowledge that emerges from such assumptions are briefly considered, but my main interest lies in defending a political methodology or approach to citizenship that relies on the term “feral” to describe the activity and subjectivity of political agency.²