My article on slaughterhouse vigils is in the latest issue of the European Journal of Political Theory: https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/EPT/current. In it, I explore the idea of bearing witness as a form of political activism.

When I first encountered slaughterhouse vigils, I thought them a somewhat pointless & self-indulgent form of protest. But, as thinking carefully & reading accounts, I changed my mind. I now think these protests can send a powerful signal about the moral status of nonhuman animals. They do this by signalling that the suffering & death of nonhuman animals can be worthy of grief & attention.

Despite changing my mind about slaughterhouse vigils, I still think the commonest form, practiced by the Animal Save Movement, is too broad & demanding. In large part, this is because it has its roots in the idea of Christian witness. My paper develops a secular form of witnessing to address this.

The paper: ‘Bearing witness, animal rights and the slaughterhouse vigil’ is open access: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10…. I also wrote a short summary for the Vegan Society, which is here: https://www.vegansociety.com/get-involved/research/research-news/vigils-and-witnessing-animal-rights-activism