Multispecies Warfare in Palestine-Israel: A talk by Irus Braverman

Brook Farm Institute for Critical Studies welcomes Irus Braverman as the next speaker in our public lecture series, Critical Interventions:

Animals have long played important roles in human warfare. Drawing on ethnographic research and on her own experiences growing up in Palestine-Israel, Braverman will explore how nonhuman animals have become active participants in Israeli warfare and how warfare itself has been shaped by their presence. Introducing the concept of "multispecies warfare," she will show that animals are not simply instruments of military violence, but that they also acquire political significance through animal welfare regulations, animal rights initiatives, property regimes, and environmental protections. Sheep seize territory through grazing, dogs become subjects of rescue and humanization, donkeys sustain mobility under siege, crocodiles operate as imagined security technologies, and camel movement becomes criminalized through conservation laws. Warfare, then, is enacted through both violence and care. By tracing unexpected connections between humans, animals, and war, Braverman will offer a new way of thinking about warfare itself: not as an exclusively human endeavor, but as a complex multispecies project that shapes political worlds.

This free and public event will take place in the Community Room of the Cambridge Public Library.