Aidan Kankyoku is a researcher focused on developing new strategies for the social movement wing of the farmed animal advocacy space. He co-founded Pax Fauna for that purpose in 2021, which led in 2023 to the launch of Pro-Animal Future, marrying the mass grassroots energy of the animal rights movement with a sober political strategy.
Since getting started as a community organizer with Direct Action Everywhere in Colorado in 2015, Aidan has been immersed in studying the craft of disruptive mass movements. Besides spending years organizing in the animal freedom movement, Aidan has gained a broad perspective on mass movement building through hands-on experience at the Standing Rock #NoDAPL protests in South Dakota, Extinction Rebellion in London, and elsewhere. He has spent years seeking out new tools and methods for organizing, from better digital communication platforms to organizational governance systems like Holacracy, in order to lay the groundwork for Pax Fauna and a new mass movement for animal freedom.
Informed by research on social change and data published by Facebook on connectedness between certain geographies in the US, Eva suggests a new strategy for concentration in the Animal Freedom Movement.
In Part 1 of the "It’s Social Norms, Stupid" series, Aidan explains how the farmed animal movement’s dominant theory of change neglects the role of social norms in shaping people’s attachment to meat. As a result, current strategies are insufficient to bring about the end of animal farming.
It was a fascinating idea and a bit of a disaster. Instead of energizing supporters’ social networks to create change, as its creators intended, it often had the opposite effect- to isolate advocates from their closest relationships. Eva explains what it was, why it was a good idea, and what went wrong.
Charting a Course: Pro-Animal Future’s 10-Year Roadmap This post is intended to contextualize Pax Fauna and Pro-Animal Future’s current work in relation to our past work and future plans by elaborating on the 10-year plan outlined in the graphic above. I’ll start with a word about what this is ultimately meant to achieve, though I’ll […]
Given Pro-Animal Future’s ongoing dual-ballot measure campaign in the city and county of Denver, we sought to poll Denver residents to better understand their baseline level of support for these two measures, which would 1) ban slaughterhouse operations and 2) ban the sale of fur in the city and county of Denver. Additionally, we sought […]
By understanding and valuing individuals' reasons for meat consumption, rather than directly countering, we build bridges for meaningful dialogue. This empathetic approach makes others more receptive to alternate views, driving positive change in animal freedom discussions.
Anti-vegan bias, manifesting as alienating comments, jokes, and structures, can be viewed through the lens of microaggressions. Recognizing the parallels between these experiences and their often unintentional authorship can help us promote inclusivity and empathy, serving as a model for supporting marginalized groups across various contexts.
In the most basic sense, Nonviolent Communication gives us two options in every moment: we can give empathy to someone else’s experience or we can express our own, and we can do either of these silently or out loud.
Certain exercises can guide us in how we make these choices in certain moments.
This exercise is for moments when we’ve made an impact on someone else that we don’t enjoy.
This blog post introduces an exercise to understand and channel anger, which can be both a protective force and an overwhelming emotion. It shares a personal example of how the exercise helped diminish a recurring pattern of anger.
Start simple, practice self-empathy, and prepare to navigate a challenging conversation. Journal exercises, observation of habits, and empathy are first steps in practice.
Observations and requests are NVC strategies to foster collaboration and minimize defensiveness. Observations offer clarity without blame, covering both external and internal experiences. NVC requests are clear and positive, differentiating between non-coercive requests and demands. Connection requests enhance understanding during conversations, while solution requests emphasize mutual understanding over negotiation.
In work that is mainly limited by person-hours and the ability to work together, conflict represents a grave threat.
At the same time, conflict is, to misquote Melanie Joy, normal, natural, and necessary. That’s to say that it would be naive to expect a movement without conflict. The ideal that we should hope for is that as a movement, we learn to process conflict in a healthy and constructive way.
Eva speaks from her experience as DxE’s former legal coordinator and current felony Open Rescue defendant, reflecting on some lessons learned from the Smithfield victory and the implications for future movement strategy.
This piece contains the processed data informing the findings we present in Where the Animal Movement will be Reborn. We recommend reading that piece first if you haven't already, then coming back here if you want to see the data. Methods Data was drawn from Meta’s Social Connectedness Index. We used Python to draw out […]
In part 3 of "It’s Social Norms, Stupid," Aidan shows how social movements can unleash the power of social networks to change norms at scale, including for the animal freedom movement. If you don’t know what “social movement strategies" are, you’re in the right place.
In part 2 of "It’s Social Norms, Stupid," we see how the science of social networks has cast new light on how changes in norms spread. This research points to a new strategy animal advocates can use to challenge norms directly.
Eva proposes the new Liberation Pledge: to have brave conversations with people we’re close to, where a solution is found in collaboration with the other, to ask for meaningful solidarity.
