Abstract

This article grapples with two pressing problems endemic to capitalist agriculture: the exploitation of nonhuman animals and the enclosure of the agricultural commons. How might a post-growth food transition support animal liberation and restore access to the means of food production? Care farming, an international paradigm integrating agriculture and healthcare through the therapeutic use of farming, may offer a path forward. Employing speculative ethnography, the article explores an expanded and more inclusive political ecology of care farming. It argues, through three fictional vignettes, that care farming and animal rights can resolve practical challenges for one another. The cultural and legal recognition of domesticated animals as members of society is a means for mitigating anthropocentric practices in care farming. Scaling up care farming, in turn, is a way of welcoming domesticated animal citizens into public space and community life. Attending more to social and spatial configurations than technologies, the vignettes hold high- and low-tech approaches to agriculture, interspecies communication, and democratic deliberation in tension. The article concludes by reflecting on questions for further consideration.

Keywords: animal rights, care farming, care ethics, multispecies democracy, post-growth

How to Cite:

Steelman, T., (2025) “City of sanctuary: Exploring multispecies democracy in a post-growth food future”, Journal of Political Ecology 32(1): 5850. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5850