Public talk by Alfonso Donoso

19 FEBRUARY 2026, 5pm – 6:30pm

Academic Conference Center (AKC), Husova 4a, Prague 1

Abstract:

This talk advances a non-speciesist account of structural oppression that illuminates how contemporary social, economic, and political systems jointly organise the subordination of human and nonhuman beings. Drawing on Iris Marion Young’s theory of oppression, I argue that the harms experienced by animals cannot be understood solely as instances of cruelty or individual wrongdoing; they are products of institutional arrangements that generate vulnerability, dependence, and hierarchies of privilege. I then extend this framework to two domains that exemplify the entanglement of human and nonhuman oppression. First, I examine how ableism and capitalist norms of productivity construct certain bodies as inefficient, abnormal, or disposable, shaping the marginalisation of disabled humans alongside the technological manipulation of animals. Second, I analyse migration as a structural site where deprivation, containment, and disposability converge across species, revealing how border regimes and labour systems co-produce patterns of domination. Together, these analyses articulate a unified political account of oppression as a structure of irresponsible privilege and call for a cross-species approach to justice.

Alfonso Donoso is Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with a joint appointment at the Institute of Political Science and the Institute of Applied Ethics. He received his Ph.D from the University of York, an MLitt in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews, and a BA in Philosophy from UC Chile. In 2021 he was a Carson Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. His research focuses on animal ethics and animal politics, environmental ethics and justice, territorial rights, political obligations, and the philosophy of punishment. He has published in venues including Environmental Values, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, and South African Journal of Philosophy.

Public lecture, free entry.