Speaking With, Not For: Rethinking Ventriloquism in Animal Advocacy and Sanctuary Practice

Abstract 

This paper examines how animal advocacy, despite its ethical aims, often reproduces species hierarchies through practices of ventriloquism, meaning the representation of animals by projecting human values and narratives onto them. Focusing on two emblematic cases, the “super-whale” and the vaquita, the paper explores how charismatic species are made to “speak” within frames that serve human interests, while others are rendered invisible. As a counterpoint, the paper turns to animal sanctuaries (particularly politically engaged ones) as spaces that enable relational, embodied forms of communication and care. Here, nonhuman animals participate in shaping multispecies narratives that challenge anthropocentric norms. By highlighting the ethical potential and limitations of these spaces, and drawing on critical animal studies and posthumanist theory, the paper calls for a shift from representational justice to embodied, situated forms of interspecies solidarity.

1. Introduction 

The question of voice—who speaks, who is heard, and how representation is mediated—has long been central to struggles for justice, from feminist and decolonial movements to disability and queer activism (Dotson, 2011; Garland-Thomson, 1996). These movements have shown how structures of power determine whose voices are amplified, whose are silenced, and how “speaking for” others can either enable recognition or reproduce forms of marginalization. In the field of animal advocacy, this issue becomes even more complex. Nonhuman animals cannot speak through human language, and their experiences are therefore always mediated through human representations—whether in campaigns, policy narratives, or ethical discourse. This paper explores the ethical and political tensions inherent in representing nonhuman animals. While some form of “speaking for” may be unavoidable, especially in advocacy contexts, not all representations are equal. The risk arises when such representations are reductive and instrumental, disconnected from the actual lives and interests of the animals involved. This is where the concept of ventriloquism becomes relevant—not as a synonym for representation itself, but as a critical term that signals when representation becomes a form of appropriation. As Eva Meijer (2019) observes, “speaking for animals is always speaking in a language that is not theirs” (p. 38), a reminder that even well-intentioned advocacy inevitably translates nonhuman experiences into human frameworks. Building on this, I use the term ventriloquism to describe those moments when animals are made to “speak” in human terms—often reduced to symbolic, moral, or emotional figures that serve human ends, rather than expressing their own complexity and agency (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). 

Closely linked to this is the logic of animal exceptionalism, through which particular species (typically charismatic, emotionally resonant, or aesthetically appealing) are privileged within public and institutional discourse, while others are ignored. This selective visibility mirrors broader social hierarchies that reward familiarity and symbolic capital, rather than fostering inclusive ethical engagement (Haraway, 2008; Wadiwel, 2015). Representation and exceptionalism often work together: advocacy is shaped around what is legible and compelling to human audiences, rather than what is relationally or ecologically significant for animals themselves. Through the cases of the “super-whale” and the vaquita, this paper examines how advocacy practices risk reproducing hierarchies and flattening animal subjectivity through familiar narrative tropes. As a counterpoint, I turn to animal sanctuaries; particularly those that are politically and ethically self-aware spaces where human-animal relations are built not through projection, but through embodied, and situated forms of negotiation. In these contexts, representation is not eliminated, but becomes attentive and shared. The sanctuary therefore emerges not only as a site of care, but as a space of relational storytelling and ethical experimentation; one that points toward more just and situated modes of multispecies coexistence. What is at stake, then, is not just how animals are represented, but how humans relate to them. Advocacy that relies only on images, symbols, or moral appeals may bring attention to certain species, but often at the cost of flattening their complexity. This paper argues for a different approach, one that moves beyond simply making animals visible or turning them into powerful metaphors. Instead, I propose that a more ethical advocacy should begin with relationships: being present with animals, recognizing their agency, and building forms of solidarity that are lived and embodied, not just imagined or narrated. This means shifting the focus from representation to interaction, from telling stories about animals to paying attention to the stories they co-create with us in shared spaces of care. It is in these messy, unpredictable, and relational moments that a deeper form of justice can emerge. Of course, this shift does not mean assuming that unfiltered access to animal subjectivity is possible. As Steven Vogel (2015) reminds us, all human relationships with the nonhuman world are shaped by cultural practices, language, and material conditions. Even the most attentive forms of care take place within human frameworks and are never entirely free from interpretation. But acknowledging these limits is not a reason to give up; rather, it is an invitation to practice humility, to stay open to complexity, and to remain accountable for how we represent and respond to other beings. 

2. Methodological Note 

This paper adopts a conceptual and critical approach grounded in multispecies studies, animal ethics, and posthumanist theory. Rather than relying on quantitative data, the analysis draws from selected case studies and existing literature in animal advocacy and sanctuary practices, with an emphasis on how animals are represented in campaigns and care-giving settings. The aim is not to generalize but to interrogate how ventriloquism operates across different contexts, and to explore what more ethical, situated forms of representation might look like. My perspective is informed by an ecofeminist and antispeciesist positionality, attentive to interdependence, power, and epistemic justice. 

3. Animal Exceptionalism and the "Super-Whale” 

Animals have long been cast as supporting actors in human narratives, often serving as symbols that reflect cultural values, moral ideals, and societal anxieties. Among them, companion animals and charismatic megafauna—species that capture public fascination due to their size, intelligence, or aesthetic appeal—are frequently assigned moral and cultural significance based on human-perceived virtues such as innocence, bravery, or loyalty (Lorimer, 2007). This selective ascription of value results in animal exceptionalism, a framework in which certain species are elevated above others within environmental and advocacy discourses, often to the detriment of a broader and more inclusive ethical consideration of nonhuman life. 

A prime example of this dynamic is found in Arne Kalland’s (2009) concept of the “super-whale,” which critiques how whales have been romanticized and symbolically constructed as emblems of freedom, purity, and ecological harmony. In his work Unveiling the Whale: Discourses on Whales and Whaling, Kalland (2009) explores how anti-whaling campaigns, particularly those originating in Western conservationist movements, have framed whales as near-mythical creatures, morally superior to other marine animals and intrinsically tied to a vision of untouched, pristine nature. While this discourse has undeniably contributed to heightened awareness and protection efforts for cetaceans, it also introduces problematic anthropocentric assumptions that reinforce selective concern for specific species while neglecting broader ecological and cultural contexts. 

In this context, the "super-whale" is not merely an advocacy tool; it is a socially constructed archetype, shaped by centuries of literature, art, and media representations. In Western environmental discourse, whales have frequently been endowed with near-human qualities, portrayed as intelligent, emotionally complex beings whose suffering mirrors human struggles. This symbolic elevation, however, tends to flatten the diversity of cetacean species and erase their actual ecological roles. 

This phenomenon is particularly evident in how whales are narrated in global conservation efforts. The whale as a symbol of environmental virtue is a deeply ingrained image, reinforced through popular documentaries such as Blackfish (2013) and The Cove (2009), which, while shedding light on cetacean suffering, also perpetuate an exceptionalist framework. In these narratives, whales and dolphins are not simply marine animals; they become ambassadors for ocean conservation, embodying a moral purity that aligns with human environmental concerns. This moralization of certain species often leads to their being framed as "special victims," whose protection is prioritized over that of less charismatic marine life. For instance, industrial fishing practices lead to devastating consequences for marine ecosystems, yet advocacy campaigns often focus overwhelmingly on whales and dolphins while giving far less attention to fish species suffering from overfishing, bycatch, and habitat destruction. The same fishing nets that entangle whales also trap millions of non-charismatic fish, sharks, and seabirds, yet these losses receive significantly less public attention. This imbalance in conservation priorities highlights how animal exceptionalism influences policy, funding, and public engagement, reinforcing hierarchies in environmental ethics. The “super-whale” becomes the perfect token for non-human animal ventriloquism in a species-centric conservation model that flattens the entanglements and casts a shadow over Indigenous subsistence whaling. 

4. Animal Ventriloquism: The Case of Vaquitas 

If the figure of the “super-whale” reveals how animal exceptionalism can elevate certain species to near-mythical status, the case of the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), the world’s smallest and most critically endangered cetacean, demonstrates a subtler but equally problematic form of symbolic manipulation. Like whales, vaquitas are framed through highly emotive narratives; yet, instead of being cast as wise or sentient beings, they are portrayed as mute victims, helplessly swimming toward their tragic doomsday. This narrative does not necessarily elevate the vaquita as exceptional in the usual charismatic sense, but rather makes it exceptional through its perceived fragility and silence—mobilizing emotional urgency by framing it as a passive, doomed subject. 

What emerges is a form of animal ventriloquism in which the vaquita speaks not through its ecological presence, but as a redemptive figure for human moral failure. As Bhardwaj and O’Key (2024) argue in their reading of dolphins in The Hungry Tide and Gun Island, the use of animals as symbolic figures of redemption often obscures their material realities. In these narratives, the animal becomes a kind of moral mirror: its survival or suffering serves as a test of human ethics. The vaquita, too, is positioned as such a test—its continued existence used to measure how far humanity is willing to go to atone for its environmental destruction. But this symbolic function is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it opens space for care and mobilizes public attention; on the other, it reduces the animal to a flattened emblem, stripped of ecological specificity and overwritten by the human need for meaning and moral clarity. While Bhardwaj and O’Key (2024) focus primarily on literary figuration, the vaquita case brings their insights into the realm of conservation practice, where symbolic framings shape not only perception but actual intervention. The vaquita becomes not simply a symbol of extinction, but the perfect moral emblem: small, shy, delicate—almost designed to be loved. Its “dark, expressive eyes” and “child-sized” (Butler, 2024) body, often highlighted in advocacy campaigns, embody the kind of innocence Western conservation tends to reward: animals that evoke care without complication, empathy without ambiguity. In this process, however, the vaquita’s role as an ecological actor, as part of a marine network, entangled with other species, is pushed aside. What remains is a softened, consumable and resalable figure of loss: highly and emotionally powerful, but ecologically abstract. This abstraction carries political consequences. When the vaquita is framed as a solitary victim, the broader entanglements it inhabits—particularly the transnational trafficking of totoaba, driven by the high commercial value of its swim bladder (Cruz-López et al., 2023)—are rendered invisible. The focus narrows to what is emotionally legible, leaving behind the messy, distributed forms of ecological collapse that are harder to narrate and harder to feel for. In this sense, ventriloquism does not just distort the vaquita’s image, it simplifies the crisis it inhabits. Conservation becomes a story of rescuing the lovable, not of transforming systemic issues. And that, paradoxically, may make it harder to protect what actually sustains the vaquita’s world. To engage ethically with the vaquita, then, means resisting the pull of abstraction. It requires shifting attention away from its symbolic innocence and toward its situatedness—understanding the vaquita as part of a precarious ecological community that resists clean metaphors and demands a more relational, materially grounded conservation ethic. 

This broader concern brings us back to the structure of animal ventriloquism itself. As previously considered, ventriloquism occurs when humans project their voices, emotions, and ethical concerns onto nonhuman species, using them as figures in larger human-centered narratives. Unlike anthropomorphism, which attributes human-like capacities to animals, ventriloquism manipulates their representation, crafting stories in which animals “speak” through human ethical agendas rather than through their own ecological roles. This mechanism is particularly evident in conservation discourse, where some species are turned into powerful symbols of ecological collapse, while others, equally endangered, remain unnoticed. Just as the “super-whale” was constructed as a narrative device to promote ocean conservation, the vaquita has been molded into a tragic icon: a solitary, expressive child whose silent suffering is meant to stir moral urgency. 

A striking example of this dynamic appears in a LinkedIn post by environmental journalist Rhett Ayers Butler (2024), which frames the vaquita’s fate in highly emotive terms: 

“A gentle porpoise no larger than a child, with dark, expressive eyes...” This phrase encapsulates some of the core mechanisms of animal ventriloquism: 

● Humanization through emotional imagery: likening the vaquita to a human child reinforces its position as innocent and helpless, easily claimable as a victim worth saving. 

● Selective focus on physical traits: by emphasizing its “dark, expressive eyes” (Butler, 2024) the narrative invites the reader to read emotion, awareness, and suffering through human registers, as if the vaquita were pleading for help. 

● The individualization of a systemic crisis: instead of locating the vaquita within the tangled realities of illegal fishing, habitat collapse, and marine biodiversity loss, the narrative isolates it—turning a complex situation into a singular, emotionally charged story. 

By framing the vaquita in this way, conservation discourse does more than make the animal visible—it conditions how we see, feel, and act. The risk is that this visibility comes at the cost of deeper ecological understanding: instead of grasping the interdependence of species and systems, we are offered a compelling victim. And in doing so, we mistake affect for analysis, and narrative clarity for ecological care. 

4.1 Distinguishing Forms of Ventriloquism: Voice, Power, and the Politics of Representation 

Animal ventriloquism is not merely a rhetorical or representational strategy. It is an act of power: a process through which humans assume the right to "speak for" nonhuman animals, reinforcing the assumption that they lack a voice or are incapable of expressing themselves in ways that warrant direct recognition (Meijer, 2019; Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). This process operates within a deeply entrenched anthropocentric epistemology, one that privileges human language as the only valid form of communication and, in doing so, justifies the subordination of animal subjectivities to human narratives (Haraway, 2008; Wadiwel, 2015). Moreover, the trope of giving voice to the voiceless has long been central to social justice movements, from feminist struggles to decolonial and disability rights activism (Chrisman & Hubbs, 2021; Dotson, 2011; Garland-Thomson, 1996). However, the politics of voice are never neutral; throughout history, speaking for another group has often served to either empower or further entrench structures of silencing and marginalization (Blattner, Donaldson, & Wilcox, 2020). In the case of animals, ventriloquism reflects a paradox: it arises from an intention to advocate for nonhuman beings, yet it does so by reinforcing the very structures that deny them agency (Meijer, 2019; Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2011). The question, then, is whether ventriloquism serves to amplify nonhuman voices or to further entrench the idea that 

animals are objects of human discourse rather than autonomous communicators in their own right (Haraway, 2008; Meijer, 2019). 

At the same time, some scholars challenge the possibility of entirely unmediated relationships with the nonhuman world. As Steven Vogel (2015) argues in Thinking like a Mall, all encounters with nature—and by extension, with animals—are already shaped by human cultural and material practices. There is no outside to mediation. From this perspective, the act of “speaking for” may not be inherently illegitimate, but must instead be understood as situated and accountable. The ethical challenge, then, is not to eliminate ventriloquism altogether, but to recognize it as a constructed, contingent act and to ask how it might be practiced in ways that are attentive to the interests, contexts, and agencies of the animals involved. Ventriloquism becomes ethically problematic when it denies its own framework, presenting anthropocentric narratives as transparent truths about animal life. If advocacy acknowledges its position and strives to center animals' relational and embodied realities, mediated representation may become less an act of silencing and more one of situated solidarity. 

Two primary modes of ventriloquism emerge within this framework, both relying on animal exceptionalism to structure conservation priorities and ethical discourses: 

● Species Ambassadorship: where a single species is elevated as a spokesperson for an entire taxonomic group or ecological cause, consolidating multiple species into a singular, marketable figure. 

● The “Poster Child” of Animality: where an animal is transformed into an ideological figure, carrying human ethical and political concerns while being stripped of its own subjectivity. 

Both of these frameworks function through the denial of the possibility that animals communicate on their own terms. This denial is not merely epistemic but also ecological and moral, as it shapes which species are heard, which are silenced, and which are made to speak only through human mediation. 

4.2 Symbolic Animals: From Ambassadors to Poster Children 

Animal ventriloquism often operates through the strategic selection of a single figurehead: an animal whose story is made to stand in for many others. This process takes at least two recognizable forms: the species ambassador, who speaks on behalf of their own kind and, by extension, for other species; and the poster child, who becomes the face of a broader ethical or ecological crisis. While different in scope, both rely on the same representational logic: they channel human emotions through a chosen animal, allowing certain species to become visible and morally legible, while others are left out of the frame. 

The species ambassador model elevates one charismatic species—or sometimes even a single individual—to represent an entire taxonomic group. These ambassadors are rarely chosen for their ecological importance; more often, they are selected because they align with dominant affective codes. They are large, intelligent, graceful, photogenic, or perceived as emotionally expressive. The “super-whale,” discussed by Kalland (2009), is a prime example. Orcas, blue whales, and humpbacks have come to symbolize marine conservation efforts as a whole. Their image circulates as a unified symbol of oceanic life in peril, collapsing the diversity of cetacean species into one emotionally powerful narrative. This flattening of difference may be rhetorically effective, but it comes at the cost of ecological accuracy. In becoming a symbol, the whale becomes abstracted from its own material context: distinct species, habitats, behaviors, and even relationships with Indigenous knowledge systems are dissolved into a generalized icon of marine suffering. This same logic shapes other conservation narratives. The African savanna elephant often serves as the default representative of the elephantidae family, absorbing a wide range of concerns (poaching, habitat loss, conflict with human communities) into a single, emotionally resonant storyline. Yet this consolidation is highly selective. It privileges certain animals while leaving others, that are also equally at risk, in the shadows. The ambassador model is therefore not neutral: it is an act of ventriloquism that decides which species get to “speak,” and which do not. 

Where the species ambassador speaks for a group, the poster child speaks for a condition. This second mode of representation places symbolic weight on an animal not because of its taxonomic position, but because of its emotional force within broader ideological frameworks. The polar bear has become the most iconic example of this role in the context of climate change. As Haraway (2016) points out, the polar bear no longer functions simply as a species suffering due to melting ice: it stands in for the entire Anthropocene. Its emaciated body on shrinking ice floes evokes not only environmental degradation but also the fear of planetary collapse, extinction, and irreversible damage. In being so emotionally charged, the bear stops being just a bear—it becomes a condensed image of everything we are afraid to lose. Similar dynamics are visible in vegan and animal rights advocacy, where suffering individuals—pigs in gestation crates, calves torn from their mothers, chickens in overcrowded sheds—are mobilized as icons of systemic violence. These animals are not always framed in relation to their species or ecosystem; rather, they are presented as victims of industrial cruelty writ large. As Calarco (2015) warns, this rhetorical strategy risks reducing animals to moral props: figures whose value lies in their capacity to generate outrage, rather than in their own subjectivity or agency. 

The key difference between the two models lies in the scale and direction of representation. The species ambassador is asked to stand in for its own kind, to give a face to a taxonomic group. The poster child, by contrast, becomes the symbolic vessel for an entire political crisis, ethical question, or planetary condition. In both cases, the result is a form of ventriloquism in which human concerns are projected onto animals, often overshadowing the very lives those animals lead. The whale becomes “the ocean,” the bear becomes “the climate,” the pig becomes “oppression.” And in this symbolic translation, the complex ecologies and multispecies entanglements that sustain these animals are often left out. To resist this dynamic is not to reject representation altogether, but to stay with its tensions. It means asking whether animals can be seen not only as emblems of loss or tools for moral persuasion, but as living participants in shared ecologies. It also means refusing the temptation to resolve ecological crisis into a single story, told by a single face, made to carry the weight of many. 

5. Re-telling The Story: Nonhuman Narration in Animal Sanctuaries 

The dynamics of ventriloquism and exceptionalism explored in the previous sections reveal how animal representation, even when motivated by care, can often reinforce human-centered narratives. The risk is not only epistemic but political: animals are made visible as symbols, stripped of complexity, framed through affective codes that serve advocacy more than relational understanding. To imagine alternatives, we must ask: what does it mean to move from speaking about animals to living with them? What forms of ethical and political practice become possible when animals are not turned into icons or moral test cases, but are encountered as co-present, autonomous beings? This question finds a compelling response in the lived practices of animal sanctuaries. These are spaces of refuge for nonhuman animals that are often survivors of industrial farming or abandonment. Here, they get to experience a place where life unfolds outside extractivist logics. But sanctuaries are more than shelters. In their most politically aware forms, they become experimental zones of radical care, where interspecies relationships are reconfigured and new forms of multispecies coexistence are actively cultivated (Abrell, 2016; Gillespie, 2022). Through everyday interaction, animals and humans co-construct meaning, routines, and boundaries, shaping a form of life that is neither purely wild nor domesticated, but situated and negotiated (Donaldson & Kymlicka, 2015). Crucially, sanctuaries resist the representational logic that frames animals as symbols or victims. Instead of reducing nonhuman lives to affective emblems, they foreground embodied presence: animals asserting preferences, refusing treatment, choosing companions, forming bonds, and expressing desires in ways that demand attention without translation. This relational model contrasts starkly with the dynamics described in the case of the vaquita, where conservation operates through symbolic flattening and emotional projection. In sanctuaries, animals are not reduced to icons of loss or purity; they are encountered in their lived particularity, with all the unpredictability and complexity this entails. The shift from the vaquita as a tragic emblem to the pig who nudges open a gate or the goat who initiates play with a newcomer marks a movement from abstraction to situatedness, from symbolic ventriloquism to shared relational worlds. However, these practices are not free from mediation, but rather embrace it as situated and accountable. Caregivers learn to read gestures, silences, postures, and routines as meaningful expressions, engaging in forms of interspecies communication theorized by Meijer (2019). Communication here is not extracted or imposed but co-created through time and attentiveness. Some sanctuaries document these dynamics through reflexive diaries, video logs, and ethological observation, recognizing animals not as passive recipients of care but as co-authors of sanctuary life (Gillespie, 2022). 

Moreover, sanctuary animals actively shape their environments. They organize space, initiate or avoid social interaction, and sometimes resist human intervention altogether. Their actions produce what Wadiwel (2015) describes as “nonhuman political agency”: a capacity not only to react, but to shape the conditions of coexistence. As such, sanctuaries become spaces of spatial justice where animals are not confined or instrumentalized but afforded the freedom to participate in shaping their worlds. From this perspective, sanctuaries are not just ethical experiments but political ones, modeling forms of community that refuse domination and instrumentalization across species boundaries. In this sense, the stories that emerge from sanctuaries are not simply about animals; they are with animals. They resist the logics of animal ventriloquism not by eliminating representation, but by grounding it in embodied presence, mutual adaptation, and relational accountability. In these co-narrated spaces, animals are no longer voices to be spoken for, but participants in the making of meaning and care. Sanctuaries thus offer not an escape from representation, but a profound rethinking of it: one that opens the path toward embodied justice and a more inclusive vision of interspecies solidarity. 

6. Conclusion 

Animal ventriloquism, the projection of human voices and values onto nonhuman lives, emerges in this analysis as a central mechanism through which advocacy, often even when well-intentioned, risks reproducing anthropocentric narratives. From the heroic elevation of the “super-whale” to the sentimental framing of the vaquita, these representational strategies strip animals of ecological specificity and agency, recasting them as moral symbols within human-centered stories. What appears as care may, in fact, become appropriation. 

Yet this is not the only way of being with animals. Some sanctuaries offer a different grammar of relation: one grounded in presence, reciprocity, and embodied negotiation. These are not spaces where ventriloquism is magically eliminated, but where it is acknowledged and rendered accountable. Through shared life, animals and humans engage in forms of communication that resist simplification. Gestures, silences, refusals, and affinities replace the voice-as-metaphor, allowing for narratives that are co-constructed rather than imposed. This shift from representational to embodied justice requires more than discursive adjustment. It calls for a reorientation of ethical attention: from what animals mean to what they do; from how they are framed to how they live. It also means accepting that animals do not need to be made legible through human codes to matter politically or morally. By turning toward the relational, situated practices of sanctuaries, we glimpse the possibility of advocacy that listens rather than speaks over; that stays with the tensions of representation without collapsing them into silence or symbolic clarity. In this sense, the end of ventriloquism is not the absence of speech, but the emergence of more just ways of speaking with. 

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