The Politics of Naming and Categorization

Sor Juana was acutely aware that naming—who gets called 'intellectual,' 'rational,' 'capable'—determines social position and rights. Categories are not neutral; they encode power. This concept applies directly to how we linguistically position animals: terms like 'livestock,' 'wildlife,' 'vermin,' or 'pest' pre-judge moral status and justify differential treatment. The same creature called 'companion animal' receives protection while a pig or chicken—equally sentient—is classified as 'resource.' Sor Juana's challenge to patriarchal naming and categorization provides a model for interrogating animal classification systems. She exposed how arbitrary boundaries (gender, education access) determined who could be considered fully human or intellectually worthy. Similarly, we must ask: what work does the category 'animal' do? How do terms like 'brute' or 'mere animal' naturalize exploitation? By making categorization itself visible as a political act, we create space to rename and reclassify—recognizing individual animals, species-specific capacities, and relationship rather than reducing creatures to instrumental categories. Language becomes a site of ethical intervention.