The Animal Turn

Sean Wensley, Senior Veterinarian for Animal Welfare at the PDSA, shares his insights on veterinary ethics and the challenges of advocating for animals. He discusses the moral dilemmas vets face in slaughterhouses and the complexities of animal welfare within societal norms. Wensley emphasizes the importance of transparency through CCTV in food production and the ethical implications of selective breeding. With a rich background in animal welfare and global contributions, he inspires listeners to reflect on the evolving relationships between humans and animals.

Over the years Claudia has mentioned her PhD research and journey, in this episode Catherine Oliver takes over as host and interviews Claudia about her research. They dwell on the concept of problematization and why it is important for thinking politically about urban animals.  Date Recorded: 3 October 2023  Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is an animal studies geographer and podcast producer and host. Claudia has a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, and her research is focused on the significance of the problematization of urban animals. She is particularly interested in multispecies urban spatial governance. Claudia is also the founder and host of The Animal Turn and The Animal Highlight podcasts. In 2021, she was awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication and in 2023 she was nominated for two International Women’s Podcasting Awards for her work with The Animal Turn. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Catherine Oliver is a geographer and lecturer in the Sociology of Climate Change based at Lancaster University. Her research interests are animals, more-than-human theory, and urban studies. Currently, Catherine is researching the avian worlds of Morecambe Bay.  Between 2020 and 2022, Catherine was researching the history and contemporary resurgence of backyard hens and their keepers in gardens and allotments in London, which she is writing about for her forthcoming book, The Chicken City. Previously, she researched veganism in Britain, and her book Veganism, Archives and Animals, was published in 2021 and her second book, What's Veganism For? will be published with Bristol University Press in 2024.  Featured: Cast Out Urbanites: The Historical Problematization of Cows in Kingston by Claudia Towne HirtenfelderAn Analytical Framework to Understand the Problematization of Urban (Historical) Animals by Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder.Finding Traces of Cows in the Archives and Telling Stories Differently by Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder (forthcoming)Milking economies: Multispecies entanglements in the infant formula industry by Claudia Towne HirtenfeldA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this ‘Grad Review’ Claudia talks to Virginia Thomas and Darren Chang, two early career researchers interested in animals and politics. Together they unpack synergies, tensions, and omissions that emerged in the 6th Season of The Animal Turn podcast. They discuss the multiple scales at which politics is practiced and can be considered, the crisis of imagination that potentially exists among the animal advocacy movement as well as some of the conceptual development being done by scholars that can create space for more just, multispecies futures. Date Recorded: 15 December 2023.  Darren Chang is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, and a member of the Sydney Environment Institute, at the University of Sydney. His research interests broadly include interspecies relations under colonialism and global capitalism, practices of solidarity, kinship, and mutual aid across species in challenging oppressive powers, social movement theories, and multispecies justice.Through political (and politicised) ethnography at animal sanctuaries, Darren's PhD research project explores potential alignments and tensions between animal and other social and environmental justice movements. The multispecies dimension of this project also considers the place, positions, and subjectivities of nonhuman animals in relation to anthropogenic social movements. Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interactions with their environment and with other animals. Virginia’s work explores the social and ethical questions in human-animal relationships. She is currently a research fellow on the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘From Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals’ which examines the drivers and consequences of animal feeding. This leads on from her previous research which examined human-animal relations in the media (as part of zoonotic disease framing) and in rewilding projects (in relation to biopolitics and human-animal coexistence). You can connect with Virginia via Twitter (@ArbitrioHumano).  Featured: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod by Henry BestonAnimals and Capital by Dinesh Wadiwel The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Claudia talks to Andrea Schapper about animals and international relations with an explicit focus on the United Nations. They discuss how animal rights are absent in the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the promise of the rights of nature framework being employed in Latin America.  Date Recorded: 5 December 2023  Andrea Schapper is a Professor in International Politics at the University of Stirling. In September and October 2022, she was a Guest Scholar at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden. She also held a Senior Fellowship at the Berlin-Potsdam Research Group 'The International Rule of Law - Rise or Decline' in October 2020 and was Fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany for several months in 2016 and 2017. Prior to joining the University of Stirling in 2015, she was a Lecturer in International Relations at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany (2012-2015). Her PhD is from the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (Universität Bremen, 2011) and she has previously studied at Cornell University (USA), Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany) and the United Nations Office at Geneva (United Nations Graduate Study Program, Switzerland). Andrea has worked for international organizations, like the International Labour Organization (ILO in Geneva, Switzerland), and non-governmental organizations, such as the National Domestic Workers' Movement (India) or the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (Zambia). She has conducted field research in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia and Zambia. Andrea’s research focuses on environmental justice and on new developments at the intersection of human rights and the environment, including new forms of institutional interactions and actor constellations fostering links between the two policy fields. She also has a strong interest in rights of nature and animal rights. Connect with Andrea via email (andrea.schapper@stir.ac.uk).  Featured: Transforming our world? Strengthening animal rights and animal welfare at the United Nations by Andrea Schapper and Cebuan BlissThe 18th Sustainable Development Goal by Ingrid J. Visseren-HamakersUniversal Declaration of Mother Earth by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN)A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Krithika Srinivasan joins Claudia on the show to talk about re-animalization, a concept that challenges the dominant ways in which human wellbeing are framed. Re-Animalization compels one to think about how development is predicated on logics of protection and sacrifice, expanding notions of longevity, and a reduction of risk. Re-Animalization offers an opportunity to shift our gaze to the most privileged and to consider how risks might be more evenly distributed.  Date Recorded: 23 November 2023.  Krithika Srinivasan is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of political ecology, post-development politics, animal studies, and nature geographies. Her work draws on research in South Asia to rethink globally established concepts and practices about nature-society relations and reconfigure approaches to multispecies justice. Krithika is the principal investor of the project Remaking One Health Indies. She has published widely, including in journals such as the Sociological Review, Geoforum, and Environment and Planning. Learn more about the ROHIndies project on their website and connect with Krithika on Twitter (@KritCrit) Featured: Re-animalising wellbeing: Multispecies justice after development by Krithika SrinivasanThe Eye of the Crocodile by Val PlumwoodPluriversal politics: The real and the possible by Arturo Escobar  Bed bugs are back by Heather LynchRespecting Nature’s Autonomy in Relationship with Humanity by Ned Hettinger The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and Instagram Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Claudia talks to renowned photographer Jo-Anne McArthur about the power of images in political change for animals. They unpack what animal photojournalism is, some of the challenges photographers encounter in recording the lives of animals, and the political implications of such photos.  Date Recorded: 17 October 2023.  Jo-Anne McArthur is an award-winning photojournalist, sought-after speaker, photo editor, and the founder of We Animals Media. She has visited over sixty countries to document our complex relationship with animals. She is the author of three books: We Animals (2014), Captive (2017), and HIDDEN: Animals in the Anthropocene (2020), and is the subject of Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s acclaimed Canadian documentary, The Ghosts in Our Machine. Jo-Anne’s photographs have received accolades from Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature Photographer of the Year, Big Picture, Picture of the Year International, the Global Peace Award, and others. Jo-Anne has been a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia and Denver University, and in 2020, Jo-Anne was a jury member for World Press Photo. She hails from Toronto, Canada. Find out more about Jo-Anne on her website or connect with her on Twitter (@WeAnimals).   Featured: Hidden, Animals in the Anthropocene by We Animals MediaIt’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lindsey Addario                                Every Twelve seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat. Maximum tolerated dose by Decipher FilmsZebra Eye by Frans LantingJo-Anne’s striking images of minks.We Animals MediaAaron Gekoski The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an AA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Claudia talks to Corey Lee Wrenn about two concepts that are central to her work in animal studies: social movement mobilization and feminism. They discuss veganism as a social movement as well as some of the ways in which feminism has been sidelined in animal rights’ debates.  Date Recorded: 13 October 2023.  Corey Lee Wrenn is Lecturer of Sociology with the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements at the University of Kent.  In July 2013, she founded the Vegan Feminist Network, an academic-activist project engaging intersectional social justice praxis. She is the author of A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 2016), Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits (University of Michigan Press 2019), Animals in Irish Society (SUNY Press 2021), Vegan Witchcraft: Contemporary Magical Practice and Multispecies Social Change (forthcoming, Routledge) and Vegan Feminism: History, Theory, Activism (forthcoming, Bloomsbury).   Featured: A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory by Corey Lee Wrenn.Piecemeal Protest: Animal Rights in the Age of Nonprofits by Corey Lee Wrenn. “Orphans of the left”?  by Will Kymlicka.Racism as Zoological Witchcraft by Aph Ko.Are Women Human? by Catharine MacKinnon.Ecofeminism, Second Edition by Carol Adams and Lori Gruen.The Revolution will not be funded by Incite. International Association of Vegan Sociologists. Vegan Feminist Network.Plant Based University Campaign. The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, aA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Claudia talks to lawyer and philosopher Gary Francione about abolition. Gary provides an overview of how ideas related to animals have emerged and changed since the 19th century. This includes the emergence of animal welfare, animal rights, and abolitionism. Throughout the interview Gary asserts that animal welfare and animal rights will not achieve anything until there is a paradigm shift whereby animals are no longer understood as property, food, or things to use.  Date Recorded: 5 October 2023.  Gary Francione is a is a published author and frequent guest on radio and television shows for his theory of animal rights, criticism of animal welfare law and the property status of nonhuman animals. He has degrees in philosophy and clerked for U.S. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He is the author of numerous books and articles on animal rights theory and animals and the law. His most recent book is the 2020 publication Why Veganism matters: The Moral Value of Animalsand other titles include The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? (Columbia University Press, 2010) and Animals, Property, and the Law (Temple University Press, 1995). He is also the editor of Critical Perspectives on Animals: Theory, Culture, Science and Law, a series published by Columbia University Press. Gary has been teaching animal rights for more than 25 years and, together with Professor Ana Charlton, started and operated the Rutgers Animal Rights Law Clinic from 1990-2000, making Rutgers the first university in the U.S. to have animal rights law as part of the regular academic curriculum and to award students academic credit, not only for classroom work, but also for work on actual cases involving animal issues.  Featured: Animals, Property, and Law by Gary Francione.Reflections on Tom Regan and the Animal Rights Movement That Once Was by Gary Francione.Are you a vegan or are you an extremist?  by Gary Francione. Why Veganism matters: The Moral Value of Animals by Gary Francione.Animal Liberation  by Peter Singer.Abolitionist ApprA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Dinesh Wadiwel discusses how violence is an important concept in political theory. He outlines how violence can be intersubjective, structural, or epistemic. He delves into how violence and coercion are tools used to try and achieve domination and that there is a political imperative to call violence what it is.  Date Recorded: 25 September 2023.  Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel is Associate Professor in human rights and socio-legal studies at University of Sydney. He is author of Animals and Capital (Ediburgh UP, 2023), The War against Animals (Brill, 2015) and is co-editor, with Matthew Chrulew of Foucault and Animals (Brill 2017). He is also co-editor of Animals in the Anthropocene: Critical Perspectives on Non-Human Futures (Sydney UP). He is a member of the Multispecies Justice research group at the University of Sydney, and Chair of the Australasian Animal Studies Association. In addition, Dinesh is a disability rights researcher, and has recently been part of a team of researchers who have produced two reports for the Australian Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Learn more about Dinesh here.   Featured: Australasian Animal Studies AssociationThe War against Animals by Dinesh Joseph WadiwelAnimals and Capital by Dinesh Joseph WadiwelThe Beast and the Sovereign by Jacques DerridaJustice and the Politics of Difference by Iris Marion YoungFoucault and Animals edited by Matthew Chrulew and Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel  Animal Highlight: European Wild CatThe Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and InstagraA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Steve Cooke discusses the significance of philosophy in helping to foster moral imagination. Such imagination allows for conceptual development, making moral progress and political change possible. With this backdrop, Steve unpacks how the development of habitat rights for animals would be an important step in ensuring animal vital interests are protected.  Date Recorded: 7 September 2023.  Steve Cooke is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Leicester. He works on justice and nonhuman animals, and in the ethics of protest and activism. His main interests are in what a just society for human and nonhuman animal might look like, and the ethics of different ways of achieving it. He recently published What are Animal Rights For?, published by Bristol University Press. Learn more about Steve on his university profile page or connect with him on Mastodon.  Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She has a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, and her research is focused on the significance of the problematization of urban animals. She was awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication for her work on the podcast. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured: What are Animal Rights For?  by Steve Cooke. Imagined Utopias: Animals Rights and the Moral Imagination by Steve CookeA Theory of Justice by John RawlsThe Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard. The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.EA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.iROAR NetworkiROAR brings together podcasts that aim is to make the world a better place for animals. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showThe Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website. Leave a Review on Podchaser Check out The Animal Turn Merch. Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.