The Animal Turn

In this episode Claudia continues the focus on methodology as it relates to animals and sound. This time Mickey Vallee joins The Animal Turn to talk about the concept of bioacoustics and how using bioacoustics methods alters the ways researchers relate to their research subjects – who are often animals. They discuss some of the theory and ideas circulating bioacoustics generally and Mickey’s experiences more specifically.  Date Recorded: 26 October 2021 Mickey Vallee is an associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at Athabasca University in Alberta, where he also holds the Canada Research Chair in Community, Identity and Digital Media. His work focuses on developing interdisciplinary sonic methodologies to develop new insights on human/animal relations. He has been working on a theory of critical bioacoustics, which grows out of his empirical research with bioacoustics researchers across Canada and the United States. Against a mechanistic ideology of bioacoustics sciences, critical bioacoustics, by contrast, builds a new ethical system that is less focused on the atomistic constitution of the organism than it is on the primacy of relations in sonic communication. Read more about Mickey here or connect with him on Twitter (@mickeyvallee).  Featured: Keynote Lecture by Prof Rosi Braidotti  at the Posthumanism and Society Conference; Wikipedia page about Little Nipper; A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Delueze and Flex; What would animals say if we asked the right questions by Vinciane Despret; A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab)The SAP Lab provides workspace and equipment for students engaged in sound related activities. Sonic Arts StudioThe Queen’s Sonic Arts Studio (formerly Electroacoustic Music Studio) was founded in 1970.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 Jonathan Prior about sonic methods and together they try to explore the ways in which methods such as recording, sound walking, and listening could help animal studies scholars better understand and appreciate the animals and worlds they are most concerned with.  Date Recorded: 12 October 2021 Dr Jonathan Prior is a lecturer in Human Geography at Cardiff University, Wales. His research and publications take an interdisciplinary approach, spanning environmental philosophy, sound studies, and landscape research. His first book, Between Nature and Culture: The Aesthetics of Modified Environments, co-authored with Emily Brady and Isis Brook, was published in 2018 by Rowman & Littlefield. You can access some of Jonathan’s recordings on his audio project website (12 Gates to the City) or archived on the Internet Archive. You can also learn more about Jonathan;s work on his university’s website or connect with him on Twitter (@jd_prior).   Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured: Sonic Geographies, exploring phonographic methods by Michael Gallagher and Jonathan Prior; The reintroduction of beavers to Scotland by Kim Ward and Jonathan Prior; Making Noise in the Roaring twenties: SoA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab)The SAP Lab provides workspace and equipment for students engaged in sound related activities. Sonic Arts StudioThe Queen’s Sonic Arts Studio (formerly Electroacoustic Music Studio) was founded in 1970.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 first episode of season 4, Claudia speaks to Bryan Pijanowski about soundscapes and sound ecology. They discuss what soundscapes are, how to study them and why thinking about sound might help scholars to think more deeply about animals and their environments.   Date Recorded: 7 October 2021 Dr. Bryan C Pijanowski is Professor and University Faculty Scholar in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University. His work focusses on the use of sounds to study nature and how humans perceive their environment through their senses, especially through sound.  He is also the Director of the Center for Global Soundscapes, which serves as a focal point for comparative global soundscape work that focusses on classifying sounds for use in biodiversity research.  His group also spans into informal learning. He is the Executive Producer of an IMAX-Giant Screen-Domed Experience interactive film called Global Soundscapes! A Mission to Record the Earth. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles, conducted research at over 54 locations around the world, and is close to reaching his personal mission of conducting a study in every major terrestrial and aquatic biome in the world (only four more to go!). His soundscape archive now exceeds 4 million recordings.  The longest research project is now starting its fifteenth year.  Dr. Pijanowski received his PhD (Zoology) from Michigan State University and his BS from Hope College (Biology). Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured: Soundscape Ecology: The Science of Sound in the Landscape by Bryan Pijanowski et al; Soundscape conservation by Sarah DumyaA.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab)The SAP Lab provides workspace and equipment for students engaged in sound related activities. Sonic Arts StudioThe Queen’s Sonic Arts Studio (formerly Electroacoustic Music Studio) was founded in 1970.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.

Animals are increasingly at the forefront of research questions – not as shadows to human stories, or as beings we want to understand biologically, or for purely our benefit – but as beings who have histories, stories, and geographies of their own. PhD Candidate Claudia Hirtenfelder talks to animal studies scholars about some of the most important ideas emerging out of this recent turn.Each season is set around a particular theme so that the ways in which these different concepts hang together (or not) become more apparent, allowing for deeper reflection and consideration not only about animals but about the broader fields in which they are now being considered. To that end, each season finishes with a Grad Review to help tie some themes together and identify potential points of divergence.Season 4 will focus all on sound! 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 sponsoring this podcast and the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab) for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John (Website) for the logo. Connect with the Podcast on Twitter or Instagram.A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.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 reviews Season 3 with Shubhangi Srivastava and Anmol Chowdhury, currently PhD Candidates in the ERC funded project titled Urban Ecologies. Together they talk about some of the gaps in the season, primarily discussions about methods, and they delve into some of the overlapping themes in the season including management, entanglement, power, and aesthetics.   Date recorded: 25 August 2021 Shubhangi Srivastava is currently a doctoral research scholar with the ERC Grant project, Urban Ecologies, at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore. Her doctoral research is centred around studying the ecological, political and socio-economic dimensions related to human-dog relationship in the context of urban India. Shubhangi has been working towards combined methods of ethnography and ethology to study nonhuman animal living in the urban. Central to her work are the ideas of beastly places and the politics around the urban animals in India. She developed an interest in human-animal relations during the course of her M.Phil. in Anthropology from University of Delhi, where she worked on the human-macaque conflicts in Northern India, looking at the cultural and religious aspects of the relationship. She can be reached on her email shubha.srivastava06@gmail.com or on twitter @Shubhangi1057.  Anmol Chowdhury is currently working in the Urban Ecologies Project (funded by ERC) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India looking at lives of macaques in urban India. Through their work, they are attempting a conversation between ethnographic and ethological perspectives of thinking about animals. Their other interests include gender and queer theory, geopolitics of  Kashmir, folk music and traditional foods. (@kashqueeri) and email address (anmol.c1234@gmail.com). Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured: Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know by Alexandra Horowitz; The more-than-human cityby Adrian Franklin.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 speaks to Michelle Westerlaken about the concept of Re-Design and how design can be used to generate multispecies worlds and opportunities. They discuss Michelle’s background in design with and for animals, how she finds theory incredibly important for design processes, and the ways in which trying to create positive urban design might generate new multispecies opportunities.  Date recorded: 26 April 2021 Michelle Westerlaken is a Research Associate on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in Interaction Design from Malmö University in Sweden where she did her dissertation on “Imagining Multispecies Worlds” in which presented 10 protagonist species and stories in a Multispecies Bestiary to illustrate a repertoire of world-making practices. As a designer, Michelle works with participatory methods that examine possibilities for humans and other species to propose interaction modalities for multispecies ways of living on this planet. So far, these projects have involved design negotiations together with cats, dogs, ants, and penguins, and various interactive technologies. Central to her work are the ways in which theory and participatory research practices continuously inform and inspire each other. Connect with Michelle on Twitter (@colombinary) or via email and find out more about the smart forests project at www.smartforests.net Featured:  It Matters What Designs Design Designs: Speculations on Multispecies Worlds (Video); Imagining Multispecies Worlds by Michelle Westerlaken; Designs for the Pluriverseby Arturo Escobar; When Species Meet by Donna Haraway; 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.

In this episode Claudia speaks to Philip Howell about urban animal history. Together they discuss the significance of geography in prying apart the many histories of animals, how attention to animal stories gives one a better appreciation for ‘the urban’ and challenges humanist ideas of history. They also touch on the stimulating experience of searching for, finding, and trying to understand animals in the archives.   Date recorded: 20 April 2021 Philip Howell is a lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is an historical and cultural geographer, and has written about the regulation of sexuality in Victorian Britain, and on the relations between literature and geography. But for 20 years he has been researching “animal geography,” focusing on the place of the dog in Victorian society, but also taking in the politics of animals in contemporary society. Find out more about Philip here and you can reach him via email (pmh1000@cam.ac.uk) Featured: Flush and the Banditti: Dog-stealing in Victorian London; At Home and Astray; Animal History in the Modern Cityby Philip Howell; The curious case of the Croydon cat-killer: producing predators in the multi-species metropolis; Black Protest and the Man on Horseback: Race, Animality, and Equestrian Counter-Conduct by Philip Howell and Ilanah Taves; Animal Spaces, Beastly Places: New Geographies of Human-animal Relations edited by Chris Philo and Chris Wilbert; The Urbanization of the Eastern Grey Squirrel in the United States by Etienne Benson; 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 Marcus Baynes-Rock about his work with urban hyenas in Harar, Ethiopia. They discuss how these animals navigate the urban and then delve into the concept of ‘multispecies commons’. In many ways, they workshop the concept in the episode trying to unpack how it is useful as both a theoretical and methodological tool.  Date recorded: 5 April 2021 Marcus Baynes-Rock is an anthropologist who studies the interfaces between humans and animals. His book Among the Bone Eaters tracks his experiences following urban hyenas in the town of Harar, in Ethiopia. More recently he has written about the new wave of animal domestication and what is can teach us about the destruction of the world’s ecological systems. Connect with Marcus via his blog (https://amonganimals.wordpress.com/) or on Twitter (@MBaynesRock).  Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured:  Life and death in the multispecies commons; Among the Bone Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar; and Crocodile Undone: The Domestication of Australia’s Fauna by Marcus Baynes-Rock; The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game by Paul Shepard.  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 Tags: Animals, Hyena, Harar, Ethiopia, Territory, Multispecies Commons, Animal Studies Methodology, Urban Political Economy,  Marcus Baynes-RoA.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 Yamini Narayanan about the concept of informality and how it can be used to unpack, complicate and understand urban-animal relations. With a focus on urban-cow entanglements, they discuss how informality is related to urban infrastructure and mobilities that help to bur some of the often dichotomous ways we’ve come to understand not only intra-human relations, but inter-species relations too. Date recorded: 28 April 2021Yamini Narayanan is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her work explores the ways in which (other) animals are instrumentalised in sectarian, casteist and even fascist ideologies in India, and how animals are also actors and architects of informal urbanisms. Yamini’s research is supported by two Australian Research Council grants. Yamini’s work on animals, race, and development has been published in leading journals including Environment and Planning A and D, Geoforum, Hypatia, South Asia, Society and Animals, and Sustainable Development. With Kathryn Gillespie, she has co-edited a special edition of the Journal of Intercultural Studies on the theme “Animal nationalisms: Multispecies cultural politics, race, and nation un/building narratives” (2020) . In 2019, Yamini was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Mid-Career Research Excellence. In recognition of her work, she was made Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics (FOCAE), a distinguished honour that is conferred through nomination or invitation only. Connect with Yamini on Deakin University’s website or on Twitter (@YaminiNarayanan).   Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She is a PhD Candidate in Geography and Planning at Queen’s University and is currently undertaking her own research project looking at the geographical and historical relationships between animals (specifically cows) and cities. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured: Street dogs at the intersection of colonialism and informality: ‘Subaltern animism’ as a posthuman critique of Indian cities, Jugaad and informality as drivers of India’s cow slaughter economy; Animal nationalisms: Multispecies cultural poliA.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.

Metabolism is an increasingly important concept in understanding how cities operate. Claudia chats with Catherine Oliver about the concept of urban metabolism and its usefulness in understanding the multiple scales of multispecies relations that are produced in and through urban living. Date recorded: 3 May 2021Catherine Oliver is a postdoctoral researcher, currently working on the ERC-funded project Urban Ecologies at the University of Cambridge, where she is researching urban backyard chickens and chicken-keepers in London. Her monograph, Veganism, Animals, and Archives is forthcoming with Routledge (August 2021). She is also a Wiley-Royal Geographical Society Digital Archives Fellow, researching animals as collaborators and workers in geographical knowledge production. Catherine’s other research is in feminist geographies, notably focussed on ‘dis-belonging,’ precarity, and the reproduction of neoliberal hierarchies at academic conferences. More information can be found on her website (https://catherinecmoliver.wordpress.com) and she can be found on twitter at @katiecmoliver.  Featured: City chickens: What the rise of urban hen-keeping might mean for veganism and Veganism, Animals, and Archivesby Catherine Oliver;  Earthlings with Joaquin Phoenix; Animal Liberation by Peter Singer; Industrial Metabolism: Fat Knowledge by Hannah Landecker; Eating in Theory and I Eat an Apple by Annemarie Mol; 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.