Sarat Colling, Animali in Rivolta: confini, resistenza e solidarietà Umana, (Mimesis/Eterotopie, 2017), 180.

What does it truly mean to resist? Is it only deliberate, or can we look at resistance through other lenses? This is the fil rouge of “Animals in Revolt” (Mimesis Publishers, 2017), a 180-page book written by American sociologist Sarat Colling. Her profound passion for amplifying stories of animal agency shaped both her intellectual and artistic life. 

Sadly, Sarat Colling passed away on May 16, 2025, in a fire at her home on Hornby Island, where she lived with her dog, Xena. Reading means to remember and to pursue a life through someone else's words, with this idea in the mind and heart, this book challenges the dominant notion that resistance must be conscious, human-like, or organized to be valid.

Across its pages, the book presents and analyzes different stories of animals who escaped from slaughterhouses. These acts of flight are not treated as isolated incidents but are examined sociologically, particularly in terms of their influence on public consciousness. Colling's analysis is enriched by theoretical frameworks drawn from transnational and postcolonial feminism, which enable her to approach the subject without paternalism and to recognize animals as beings with inherent agency.

Structured across six chapters, Animali in Rivolta (Animals in Revolt) explores the many dimensions of animal resistance within the context of contemporary capitalism. 

The first chapter outlines the historical evolution of human-animal relations, from ancient civilizations to the instrumental use of non-human animals in warfare and revolution. The second chapter examines domestication, focusing on how animals in captivity resist and seek freedom. The third chapter explores how animals reclaim their autonomy by resisting human-imposed boundaries and adapting in defiant ways to reclaim their spaces.

The fourth chapter delves into resistance within the industrial food system, where death is mechanized, and animals recognize danger, fighting for their lives. It also considers more subtle or indirect forms of resistance. Chapter Five turns into scientific and cosmetic research, questioning how ethics are often suspended when animals are used as test subjects in the name of progress. The sixth and final chapter offers a powerful conclusion: animal rebellion is political. The possibility of forming alliances with humans opens the doors to political and legal recognition and toward

a new ethics of co-existence. 

This book offers a compelling reexamination of our relationship with non-human animals, showing that their struggles for autonomy mirror human resistance to oppression. It calls on journalists to reconsider narratives that diminish animal acts of defiance by treating them as exceptional or anomalous. More broadly, it invites readers to question the historical and personal dimensions of the human-animal relationship, one that might be reimagined through solidarity across species, paving the way for political and ethical transformation.