Introduction

Abstract

The question of animal labour has emerged as an important topic in both the academic study of human–animal relations and in public debates about the rights of animals. While the human use of animal labour has been a site of intense instrumentalization and exploitation, some people argue that (good) work can be a site of cooperation, mutual flourishing, and shared social membership between humans and animals, and that recognizing animals as ‘workers’ could have a transformative effect on our relationships with them. This introductory chapter explores some of the developments in animal ethics and animal studies that have informed this new interest in animal labour, and in particular how animal labour can be seen as overcoming the ‘welfarist–abolitionist’ dichotomy that dominates the field. It also explores some of the obvious challenges and dilemmas that animal labour raises, including questions of consent, labour rights, and the link to other social justice movements. The chapter concludes with a summary of the remaining chapters in the volume, and how each contributes to a richer understanding of the potential for animal labour to serve as a frontier of interspecies justice.