Refuge

Abstract

Abstract What is the relationship between life and trust? This article traces how trust is cultivated at Al Ma'wa, a wild animal sanctuary in northern Jordan, where dozens of animals rescued from regional warzone zoos are rehabilitated. At Al Ma'wa, trust is vital, in the sense that it is inextricably linked to what it means for the animals to live a good, ‘natural’, and fully animal life. Yet this vital trust is also bound up in the material conditions of the animals’ enduring captivity, which is said to foster feelings of security and comfort for them. I argue that vital trust upends normative associations between trust and freedom while also exposing how refuge produces differential meanings of trust, care, and life for animals and humans.