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Chapter 4 challenges political anthropocentrism. It first discusses critiques of anthropocentric interpretations of politics from the perspective of justice. These critiques are important, but we also need to investigate the power relations that have shaped our understanding of politics, and investigate the different forms of institutional and epistemic violence that play a role in these processes. Our systems of knowledge, which are interconnected with cultural practices, intersect with political exclusion. While humans recognize direct violence towards other animals, institutional violence is often not recognized because it is interconnected with epistemic violence, rendering it invisible. Language plays a role in this process. Other animals are formally excluded from political institutions and practices because they do not speak, which refers back to a view of language as exclusively human, and this view is interconnected with cultural practices and knowledge production. Challenging this requires rethinking politics with other animals. Non-human animals exercise political agency, and recognizing this is part of seeing them as full persons. In addition to analyzing power relations, we should aim to get a better view of what constitutes a good life for them, and develop new forms of politics in interaction with them.

Chapter 5 draws on recent work in the so-called “political turn” in animal ethics, most notably Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s political theory of non-human animal rights, to discuss how these concepts can guide relations between groups of non-human animals and human political communities. The author discusses their proposals for animal citizenship and sovereignty. In the second half of this chapter, the author explains problems with traditional interpretations of sovereignty that rely on claims made by the powerful to legitimize the territorial domination of others. In order to challenge human sovereignty, we should challenge human superiority on all levels, including existing political systems. However, existing institutions and systems also hold a promise for other animals, and, like citizenship, these concepts can bring into focus new forms of interacting with other animals and institutionalizing these relations. In the final section, the author turns to examples of new ways of relating to other animals that can function as beginnings for further reformulating laws and political practices.

The conclusion discusses thinking with other animals, arguing that we need to take their agency into account in writing about them. In the second half of the conclusion, the author draws general conclusions and offers recommendations for further research together with other animals.

In the first case study, the author develops the ideas about language and politics further by discussing her own personal experiences with Romanian stray dog Olli around three themes: language, freedom, and politics. The author focuses on the first three months with Olli, in which a common language and habits were created and a certain level of freedom was established for him. The first section shows how their common language and habits came into existence. This created a common world, as well as a way to express that world, which changed both the dog and the human in question. The second section discusses learning to walk on the lead in relation to freedom and oppression in interspecies communities. The last section focuses on Olli’s political agency as a former stray dog, both on the micro- and macro-levels. By emphasizing Olli’s perspective and actions, this chapter also aims to explore ways to move beyond anthropocentrism in philosophy. The author learned to see the world through his eyes, and experienced the constraints dogs must live with in cities anew, because everything was new for him. Living together changed both of them.