Autonomy for Sale (digital, 2022) is a political cartoon that explores the contrasting notions of animal autonomy and the consumption of animals.
Pictured is a personified bluefin tuna who spots themself on sale at the store. Remarking upon the sale, the personified bluefin tuna believes that they are more valuable than the listed sale price, but, sadly, the tuna does not have the ability to exercise autonomy.
Here, Autonomy for Sale focuses on an individual bluefin tuna and its individual perspective. However, consumers often do not consider individual bluefin tuna or their potential for personhood. Instead, the species is framed using mass terminology – “fish” or “seafood” – as scholar Carol J. Adams defines (Adams, 2018). As bluefin tuna are reduced to these mass terms, consumers are able to further dissociate and disconnect themselves from the livelihood that these animals once had.
Autonomy for Sale intends to open the door for discussion surrounding animal liberation, autonomy, and ultimately if we, as humans, have the right to catch and consume fish products. Beyond this analysis, Autonomy for Sale ultimately holds space for discussion of the ethics of animal consumption. The political cartoon hopes to teach viewers about the intrinsic ties that the oppression of bluefin tuna, and animals generally, has with the oppression of humans as well (Ko, 2016).
Cartoon and writing by Ashley Kenney.
References
Adams, C. J. (2018). Neither Man nor Beast (1st ed.). Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/neither-man-nor-beast-9781350040229/
Ko, Aph. (2016). “Why Animal Liberation Requires an Epistemological Revolution.” Retrieved February 24, 2022 from https://aphro-ism.com.