Maneesha Deckha reframes animals as family members in new SSHRC grant
August 18, 2026
By David Murphy
Can thinking of animals as members of their own families reshape the law?
We know dog lovers care for their fur babies like members of the family. But society doesn’t extend that feeling to other animals like farmed chickens or cows.
For example, dairy cows are kept in a near-constant cycle of pregnancy to produce milk. Baby calves are often taken away from their deeply maternal mothers at birth and slaughtered.
Would this happen if we felt the same way about a mother cow and her calf as we did about our family pet?
UVic Law professor and Lansdowne Chair in Law Maneesha Deckha says this is a gap not yet explored in animal law scholarship, and it’s the starting point for her new project, “Animal Families and Interspecies Justice.”
It’s an interesting time for the project. Momentum is growing towards more recognition of animal rights in Canada—the Ending the Captivity of Whale and Dophins Act in 2019 was the first Canadian law to ban the captivity and human-induced reproduction of an animal species. And in 2024, amendments to BC’s Family Law Act now require courts to consider the best interest of family pets in custody rulings like a divorce.
Supported by a new six-year, $168,020 SSHRC Insight Grant, Deckha will test the animals-as-family framework, and investigate how attitudes towards the treatment of animals in captivity is reflective of how we treat the planet, as well as other human beings at large.
Q&A
What is the central question of this project?
The idea is to normalize a different way of thinking about animals in the legal system. What if we talked about animals as mothers, children or family members?
Legal arguments for animal rights protection have been largely centered on autonomy, rationality and dignity—the human rights of persons recognized formally after World War II. But this approach hasn’t worked in changing the realities of food and other systems, that devastate the lives of animals. Instead, this project tries to reframe animals not as rational individuals, but as family members that deserve our compassion, care and justice.
What’s the big picture challenge you’re addressing in this project?
The way corporations and individuals treat animals is the root of many of the world's most pressing problems. Whether we're talking about climate change, food insecurity, biodiversity loss or broader questions of justice, we’re not paying attention to the elephant—or cow—in the room. Animal-based food systems cause enormous environmental harm and animal and human suffering but we keep justifying them largely due to anthropocentric privilege and capital interests. A human-centric mindset cannot solve environmental crises, and it won't solve deeper questions of treating others who are different from us. This project is trying to address that greater mindset that is normalized in many traditions and cultures.
How do we reframe animals as family?
Almost everyone recognizes that companion animals like cats and dogs in Canada are embedded within family. Children's storybooks and cultural media are saturated with companion animals as part of the family. But how can people see farmed animals like that? If we can normalize this type of discourse, it resonates with the idea of animals as kinship. Framing animals as mothers, children and family when speaking to legal decision-makers, gatekeepers, political leaders and social influencers could be a more effective way to stimulate policy change in the long run.
How far has this approach gone in the legal system?
Because of the nature of the legal system, especially the common law, legal wins are secured through reasoning by analogy. In court, animal rights advocates have to compare whales and chimpanzees to humans. But even for these culturally favoured animals judges often reject the level of rights between animals and humans and say change should be made by legislators, not the courts. But politicians won’t do anything, especially regarding food because people like what they like to eat, and food is tied to gender, religious and cultural identities, as well as the economy.
How do you change the public’s mindset on animals?
Language and narrative framings are so important to our thoughts. We may call our companion animals she, he, they, and not think of them as an object. But humans typically refer to all other animals as an ‘it’. And that enables objectification. The difference is important between non-human and more-than-human, multispecies justice and interspecies justice or farm animals vs. farmed animals. If we can normalize language in classes, public talks or in the media, then cultural and also legal change can happen.
How does gender play into this research?
This project centers gender. It connects intersectional feminist scholarship about families, motherhood and children's rights to animal law debates about how to accelerate dramatic legal change for animals. The dairy industry depends on the devastation of the mother-calf bond. Would framing animals as families, cows as mothers, calves as children, influence how humans think about gender and biology, as well as the mistreatment and injustice of animals?
How does this project connect with Indigenous legal traditions and decolonization?
Many Indigenous legal orders see animals as kin and family—not objects. If we're committed to decolonization, then how can we continue with the perspective of animals as property in Canadian law? That's not a relational or respectful perspective. We know Indigenous legal orders should be seen as equal to Canadian law. If we take the frame of animal kinship and its value in Indigenous legal systems, it is an entry point to talking about animals as family members the food system, in research labs and in zoos and aquaria.
Why is this research timely now?
For centuries corporations, ships and municipalities have been persons while nonhumans who live, breathe, and feel are legally treated as commodities. But there is now momentum questioning such a paradox. We see more discussion about the rights of animals in mainstream places. And globally, there’s real growth towards rights of nature—a very relational discourse that talks about nature as our mother. And, there’s even increasing attention to personhood for machines and artificial intelligence. A lot of cultural change is coming into a confluence that is animating this project. This project draws from this confluence to surface the gendered norms informing human-first cultural and legal mindsets. It considers the potential of a relational family frame to transition societies toward interspecies justice.