Dystopian fiction, postcolonialism and non-human biography: Sociological speculatives and crisis complexity

The recent global pandemic appeared to offer a significant opportunity to centralise human–animal sociology, but responses were largely limited to medical and political bordering, without interrogating the multispecies implications of environmental crises in anthroparchal relations. This article argues that, given current interlinked global crises, it is imperative that sociologists increase understandings of causes and remedies, which necessarily include critiques of human–animal relations. Speculative fiction can significantly advance human–animal sociology, being based in futures extrapolated from current realities and providing complex imaginaries for the possibilities of increasing justice. Using the example of a recent speculative pandemic dystopia, the article demonstrates how interlinked environmental crises, postcolonial critiques and intersectional futures are advanced through examining human–animal relations. By including a non-human fictional biography, the novel The Animals in That Country provides a posthuman, decolonising critique that challenges existing systems and responds to the urgent future-thinking required for comprehending interlinked crises, providing the argument to expand the field of human–animal sociology to speculative fiction.