Community, Power, and Animal Welfare in Times of Global Fracture

In moments of political polarization, global inequity, and rising distrust between nations—particularly between the United States and countries in Latin America—acts of care themselves become acts of resistance. This presentation explores how community-centered animal welfare functions as a form of resistance: resistance to narrow definitions of care, to extractive power relations, and to systems that isolate communities rather than connect them. Drawing on the history and current work of The Animal Alliance (TAA), this session reframes animal welfare not as an individual or charitable endeavor, but as a collective civic practice that redistributes power, knowledge, and responsibility across communities. By centering education, service learning, and cross-border partnerships, TAA’s work challenges dominant hierarchies that privilege institutional expertise over lived experience, and U.S.-centric solutions over local knowledge—particularly in Latin American contexts. This proposal contributes to broader understandings of resistance by positioning care, education, and community-building as strategic interventions that quietly but persistently reshape power relations. Rather than resistance as confrontation alone, this session emphasizes resistance as relational, sustained, and rooted in solidarity—especially during times when political narratives encourage division and dehumanization.