We live with animals, we recognize them, we even name some of them, but at the same time we use them as if they were inanimate, as if they were objects. The illogic of this relationship is one that, on a day-to-day basis, we choose to evade, even refuse to acknowledge as present. We, or so we argue, have access to a truth, knowledge, reason and order, into which we place animals. And yet at the heart of that truth, knowledge, reason and order persists this danger, this limitation on our power. Animals are present all of the time in our lives, but frequently we treat them as if they were not there as animals. They are the limit case, if you like, of all of our structures of understanding. They stand between us and our sense of ourselves, but they also allow us to think about ourselves.
Erica Fudge, Animal (London: Reaktion Books; 2002)
