The Animal Turn

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.

Claudia talks to Krithika Srinivasan about the concept of biopolitics and how it could be used to understand multi-species urban relations. They touch on the tensions between harm and welfare as well as how different socio-biological tactics are enforced in the name of urban development.  Date recorded: 31 March 2021 Krithika Srinivasan’s 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. Through empirical projects on street dogs and public health, biodiversity conservation, animal agriculture, and non-elite environmentalisms, her scholarship focuses on decolonizing and reconfiguring approaches to multispecies justice. Both her research and teaching are deeply rooted in long-term field engagement and praxis in India. Krithika has worked as a Lecturer in the departments of Geography at the University of Exeter and Durham University before moving to Edinburgh. You can find out more about Krithika here and connect with her on Twitter (@kritcrit).  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:  The biopolitics of animal being and welfare: dog control and care in the UK and India; Conservation scapegoats and developmentality; and Reorienting rabies research and practice: Lessons from India; by Krithika Srinivasan. Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast, Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John (Website) for the logo.  The Animal Turn is part of the 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 chats with Paula Arcari about the animals and how animals are rendered invisible in the urban – not only materially but epistemically and ethically too. They grapple with which animals are considered in the celebration of multispecies urban entanglements, and which are not. Date recorded: 29 March 2021 Paula Arcari is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow within the Centre for Human Animal Studies at Edge Hill University, UK. Her three-year project ‘The Visual Consumption of Animals: Challenging Persistent Binaries’ aims to support transformational change in the way humans conceive and interact with nature. Before joining Edge Hill, Paula worked at RMIT University in Melbourne on a range of climate change projects and completed her PhD there in 2018. She is primarily interested in understanding the constitution of societal change and stability in relation to climate and environmental change, the expropriation of nature, and the oppression of nonhuman animals. Find out more about Paula here. 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:  Making Sense of ‘Food’ Animals: A Critical Exploration of the Persistence of Meat and Where species don’t meet: Invisibilized animals, urban nature and city limits by Paula Arcari; In the nature of cities: urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism by Heynen, Nik, Maria Kaika, and Erik Swyngedouw; A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: with A Theory of Meaning by Jakob von Uexküll; 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 talks to Nicholas Delon about ‘pervasive captivity’. Moving beyond a conception of captivity as only including those ‘behind bars’, they explore the many ways in which ‘the urban’ might operate to make animals captive by limiting their mobility and autonomy.  Date recorded: 15 March 2021 Nicolas Delon is Assistant Professor or philosophy and environmental studies at New College of Florida. He specializes in animal ethics, with particular interests in moral status and animal agency. He has published on these topics as well as the ethics of killing animals, urban animals, wild animal suffering, and Nietzsche, among other things. He’s currently working on a book project about animals and the moral community of persons. Check out his website (https://nicolasdelon.com/) or connect with him on Twitter (@NicoDelon)  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:  The Ethics of Captivity and Entangled Empathy by Lori Gruen; The Global Pigeon  and 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 Marie Carmen Shingne about the concept ‘Right to the City’ and how it could be applied to animals. They open up this season, focusing on animals and the urban, by asking whether animals have any claims to the city.  Date recorded: 1 March 2021 Marie Carmen Shingne is a doctoral candidate in the Sociology Department at Michigan State University with specializations in animal studies and global urban studies. Her dissertation research is focused on the experiences of the slum residents and street dogs in the Indian city of Pune and what these experiences tell us about power in and access to urban spaces and resources. Using multispecies ethnographic methods, her research asks: how is the urban space currently shared and negotiated by different urban human and nonhuman residents, in what ways are the human and nonhuman residents impacted by these negotiations, and what does an inclusive and equitable city look like according to various stakeholders? Marie Carmen can be reached via email at abneyma1@msu.edu  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: The more-than-human right to the city: A multispecies reevaluation by Marie Carmen Shingne;  Among the Bone Eaters: Encounters with Hyenas in Harar by Marcus Baynes-Rock; Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka; Street dogs at the intersection of colonialism and informality: ‘Subaltern animism’ as a posthuman critique of Indian cities by Yamini Narayanan; and 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.

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 1 - Animals and the LawSeason 2 - Animals and ExperienceSeason 3 - Animals and The Urban​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.

In this final episode of Season 2, Claudia talks to Joshua Jones, Siobhan Speiran, and Pablo Perez Castello about the theme of Animals and Experience. Together they unpack some of the overarching ideas to emerge in episodes 1 to 9 (such as relationality, imagination, meaning, and beauty) and highlight areas that could be explored more in future.  Date recorded: 4 January 2021 Siobhan Speiran is a PhD candidate in Environmental Studies at Queen’s, working with Dr. Alice Hovorka and The Lives of Animals Research Group. Her research is funded by a SSHRC Bombardier Scholarship and focuses on the lives of nonhuman primates in Costa Rican sanctuaries. Her central research question is interdisciplinary, considering how sanctuaries - as sites of ecotourism - contribute to the conservation and welfare of four monkey species. Follow Siobhan’s research on @theanimalwelfarist via Instagram or her website theanimalwelfarist.weebly.com Joshua Jones is a PhD candidate at the School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University. His research interests include extinction studies, the philosophy of ecology/biology, and biosemiotics. Josh’s thesis explores the emptiness that resides in ecological communities after species extinction. Twitter: @joshdanieljonesPablo Perez Castello is a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities, Royal Holloway University of London. His thesis in Philosophy focuses on understanding the role human language plays in producing anthropocentrism, and the importance of animal language in relation to political agency and zoodemocracy. Pablo is also undertaking research at the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law, where he explores how the constitution of Australia should change in light of the argument advanced by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka that communities of wild animals should have a right to sovereignty. He has taught Ancient Greek Philosophy, and lectured on philosophical concepts of nature in the MA in Political Philosophy at Royal Holloway. For more information, see here. Featured:  The Complete Capuchin by Dorothy Fragaszy; Decolonizing Extinction by Juno Parreñas; Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor; 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.

This episode explores a concept that works to highlight the experiences of animals caught up in human systems that oppress animals. Claudia talks to pattrice jones about how animals’ experiences (particularly those of chickens) compare in factory farms versus at VINE Sanctuary. They discuss the significance of talking about not only animals’ victimisation but also but their agency and will to survive.  Date recorded: 29 December 2020 pattrice jones is a co-founder of VINE Sanctuary, an LGBTQ-led farmed animal refuge that works for social and environmental justice as well as animal liberation. A former tenant organizer and antiracist educator with more than forty years of activist experience, pattrice has taught college and university courses in the theory and praxis of social change activism. As an ecofeminist scholar, pattrice lectures and publishes worldwide on the interconnections among human, animal, and ecological matters. You can also find VINE on Facebook and Twitter.  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 (towne@live.co.za) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). Featured:  Queering Animal Liberation a lecture by pattrice jones; Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Davis; From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge by Marti Kheel; Feminism and the Mastery of Nature by Val Plumwood; Queer Eros in the Enchanted Forest: The Spirit of Stonewall as Sustainable Energy by pattrice jones Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast, Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John (Website) for the logo.  The Animal Turn is part of the 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.