On the show today, our guest is Nathan Poirier who returned to continue our discussion about veganarchism. We talked about some of the ideas raised in Nathan's solo book and the edited books, and also highlighted some ideas that are often not examined.
Our first conversation about veganarchism aired in a previous show which is available here: https://www.3cr.org.au/freedomofspecies/episode/veganarchism-against-all...
Note: in the third section of the podcast, we left it unedited and we talk about various topics such as intersectionality, that critical animal studies is not so radical anymore (probably need a whole show to cover this), abolition, Angela Davis and more. We decided to leave in our chat unedited as a more representative overview of the conversation.
Nathan's bio:
Nathan Poirier is an independent scholar-activist who has edited or authored books that span topics like critical animal studies, veganarchism, non/human coexistence, and a forthcoming two-volume A6 set on black anarchism. Nathan is an ambassador for the Office of Empowerment (essential the DEI organization) at Lansing Community College where Nathan is a full time math tutor. Nathan enjoys bringing people and causes together so that individuals can constructively challenge each other socially and intellectually to create a better world for all. It is Nathan's continuous goal to push their own boundaries as well as others' in terms of how critical, radical thought relates to everyday life. Preferring to be somewhat of an intellectual "jack of all trades", Nathan does not consider themselves an expert in anything and primarily hops between topics of intellectual inquiry (and back again) trying to learn a bit of everything. This orientation fits in with and helped lead to their theorizing veganism and anarchism as the same thing - and together as a theory of everything.
Links:
Books:
Veganarchism: Against All Oppression, Everywhere, All the time by Nathan Poirier (2025) https://www.activedistributionshop.org/product/vegananarchism-a6/
Veganarchism: Making Veganism and Anarchism Dangerous Again (edited by Will Boisseau and Nathan Poirier, 2024) https://www.activedistributionshop.org/product/vegananarchism/
Active Distribution has been around since the 1980s, as a DIY and voluntary project to support our scenes. Run by Jon for over thirty years, he’s now stepped back to focus on Active Distribution Publishing, and a crew based in Bristol have been running the distro side of things. Still keeping things priced as low as possible, distributing a wide range of ‘all things anarchist’ and maintaining a DIY and not for profit ethic.
You can also find the books via PM Press:
The PM Press US links are below.:
Books we mentioned in the last section of our discussion:
Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out by Aph Ko (2019) https://lanternpm.org/book/racism-as-zoological-witchcraft/
Expanding the Critical Animal Studies Imagination: Essays in Solidarty and Total Liberation by Nathan Poirier (Volume editor), Sarah Tomasello (Volume editors), Amber E. George (Volume editor) (2024) https://www.peterlang.com/document/1298884
Building Multispecies Resistance Against Exploitation: Stories from the Frontlines of Labor and Animal Rights by Zane McNeill (2024) https://www.peterlang.com/document/1359054
Some links of interest:
Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you!
Christoper Sebastian on exploring radical veganism https://strivingwithsystems.com/2017/05/15/exploring-radical-veganism/
Traumatized and Thriving on Instagram - resource on Decolonize Your Life for Beginners https://www.instagram.com/traumatized_thriving/?hl=en
Music we played on the show:
Everlast - The Culling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqzr2f1cZv4
Bob Dylan - Masters of War https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU
Bob Dylan - With God on our Side https://www.youtube.com/
Please note that for copyright reasons we cannot include the songs played on the show in the podcast. Our guests' songs have been added to the Freedom of Species Spotify playlist where possible here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3TJQujKYjGFoFP6LhBbaTS?si=bfcb55c3f763...(link is external)
Thank you for listening. Please contact us with any feedback on our shows at freedomofspecies@gmail.com
The Freedom of Species Team
