From the early conceptions of this project, we sought to better understand the human / animal dichotomy and endeavoured to bridge the gap between this species divide. Yet to our dismay, the very language available in conceptualising the ‘animal’ is rooted in an anthropocentric logic that actively obstructs any potential for cognitive connection within interspecies communication. Our examination of theory and literature demonstrated a pervasive attitude of superiority in humanity, and subsequently inferiority in animality. To be ‘animal’ is to be villainized as a ‘beast’, ‘savage’, ‘brute’; an individual who is governed by senses rather than reason. To be classified as an animal is to be separated from that which is not human. When we refer to people who lack those human attributes of morality or intellect, aspects that we hold in such high esteem in our species, we degrade them by saying that “they are acting like animals.” This active dichotomy of animal / human that is directly paralleled to feeling / thinking, became the crux of our engagement with the Animal Worlds project.

The anthropocentric nature of language enables human beings to mistreat and use animal bodies in ways that entirely alienate the cognitive, emotional and feeling capacities of non-human beings. The ongoing language of ‘animal’ and its associated connotations of inferiority, based on a criterion of rationality, permits humans to degrade animals. This is a constant exploitative rhetoric that is proliferated by the English vernacular. Employment of such anthropocentric measures have produced greater global inequality where authoritarianism, hierarchism and communitarianism disregard individual (animal) freedom. This degradation thus blinds humans to alternative modes of communication found within the animal world. We often ignore or devalue the semiotic processes that exist outside organised human language.  These modes of reasoning have conditioned the continual exploitation of animals throughout human history.

It was our increasing awareness in these biased patterns of thought that inspired us to propose a new benchmark towards animal human relations. Drawing on the thoughts of Calarco, Derrida and Haraway, we seek to propose that, rather than perpetuating the human/animal dichotomy, we should recognise the ‘human-animal’ or the 'humanimal'. We must see that humans are not apart from animals, but rather with them, sharing the same ecosystems in a horizontal relationship. Our aim in the Animal Worlds Project is to restructure the ongoing conditions between humans and animals, and employ an ecologically sustainable framework.

At each stage of the ‘Animal Worlds’ chapter, we explore the different ways in which we can re-conceptualise animality. Our photo-essay attempts to expose the violence that we commit on animals in the name of science. Our exploration of ‘Flowers for Algernon’ encourages empathy and recognition of the unique individuality of all living beings. Our short film seeks to represent the non-human subject’s perspective as valuable. Through these, no longer can we say that the animal is an inferior being relegated to the background. ‘Human’ and ‘animal’ are one and the same.