What makes us human? Why and how have we established a boundary with the animal? And what does this separation reveal about our societies, our hierarchies and our violence?

In Ainsi l’animal et nous, sociologist and writer Kaoutar Harchi examines how we have constructed the figure of the animal as an inferior, exploitable, killable being – and how this same logic has served, throughout history, to justify the exclusion and domination of certain human groups: women, racial minorities, the working classes. For if we animalize animals, we have also animalized certain humans, the better to relegate them to the margins of the moral community.

Part theoretical analysis, part intimate reflection, Kaoutar Harchi’s book invites us to rethink our relationship with animality and violence, and to envisage new forms of justice and coexistence.

This meeting, organized as part of the Histoire et Cité festival in collaboration with Les Indépendantes, will be an opportunity to explore these crucial questions with the author, in relation to history, philosophy and contemporary social struggles.

The discussion will take place at the Bains des Pâquis, on the pier, under the yurt, and will be broadcast live on Facebook and available for replay on YouTube. Free admission.