“Death is Nothing at All”: A More-Than-Human Economy of Salvation in French Animal Cemeteries

French law prohibits the burial of animals in human deathscapes. In that context, animal cemeteries seem to offer those who lost a companion animal a space to grieve. A study of two of the largest animal cemeteries in France indicates that people in this part of the world use these cemeteries not only as a place to mourn and remember companion animals, but also as a space where humans can express narratives about more-than-human love, hopes that animal souls live on, and a desire to be reunited with beloved animals in the afterlife, thereby including them in a more-than-human economy of salvation. However, further analysis indicates that this economy of salvation relies on a conception wherein animals and humans are qualitatively compared on an evolutionary scale. In that conception, animals aspire to humanity, the way humans aspire to god. Thus, animal cemeteries can also be seen as reinforcing human exceptionalism.