In this crossover episode from The Deal With Animals Podcast, Marika S. Bell talks to two experts about the impacts of sensory pollution on animals. Sensory pollution from artificial light and noise has profound effects on wildlife behavior, reproduction, and survival. Brett Seymour and Jennifer Phillips share insights about how everyday choices impact everything from insect flight patterns to bird nesting success. Date Released: 7 May 2024 Dr. Jennifer Phillips is an assistant professor at Wash...
Apr 28, 2025•59 min
The global big cat trade encompasses both legal and illegal networks, with South Africa standing as the world's largest exporter of big cats including both live animals and parts. Vanessa Amoroso from Four Paws International explains how captive breeding facilities create a "conveyor belt of cubs" that fuels tourism attractions while obscuring the darker reality of what happens to these animals. Together Claudia and Vanessa discuss how loopholes in CITES allows for the large-scale legal breeding...
Apr 14, 2025•51 min
Rashmi Singh Rana and Priyanshu Thapliyal join Claudia on the show to discuss some of the key themes to emerge in Season 7, Animals and Multispecies Health. These include thinking beyond anthropocentric understandings of health; considering how geography and context shape health relations; and the importance of discourse in both imaginative and material impacts. Date Recorded: 29 January 2025 Priyanshu Thapliyal is a PhD Researcher based in the school of GeoSciences at University of Edinburgh. I...
Feb 24, 2025•1 hr 39 min•Season 7Ep. 10
In this episode Jessica Pierce joins Claudia to explicitly discuss dogs’ health. They discuss everything from end-of-life care for dogs, to breeding practices, and discourses about dogs’ purpose in society. They unfurl some of the overlapping and similar health needs of street- versus pet-dogs and surmise that in general dogs are facing a range of both physical and psychological challenges. Date Recorded: 2 September 2024. Jessica Pierce is an American bioethicist known for her work in the field...
Feb 10, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Matthew Adams joins Claudia on the show to talk about the dogs who were used by Ivan Pavlov in his extensive laboratory operations in St Petersburg. They discuss the importance of psychology and psychological experimentation in debates about multispecies health, also pointing to the importance of art-based research that challenges anthropocentricism. Recorded: 10 September 2024. Matthew Adams is an academic in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Brighton, UK. He t...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 7Ep. 8
In this episode we delve into how urban health histories can help us to understand changing multispecies health. Heeral Chhabra tells us how the welfare of free-roaming dogs in India was caught up with the colonial history of the country and how rabies saw drastic changes in human-dog relations. Date Recorded: 27 September 2024. Heeral Chhabra is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with the Remaking One Health: Decolonial Approaches to Street Dogs and Rabies Prevention in India Project at Univers...
Jan 20, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 7Ep. 7
This episode dives into the principles of compassionate conservation, emphasizing the importance of recognizing individual lives and experiences in conservation efforts. Daniel Ramp outlines how traditional conservation often overlooks the welfare of specific animals, leading to harmful outcomes, and presents compelling arguments for integrating compassion into conservation policies and practices. Date Recorded: 1 November 2024. Daniel Ramp is a behavioural ecologist, welfare expert, and conserv...
Jan 13, 2025•1 hr 46 min•Season 7Ep. 6
Join us for a conversation with Oswaldo Santos Baquero about marginalized multispecies collectives. He explains the complexities of biological taxonomy and challenges traditional definitions of species to instead think about how collectives operate. By critically analyzing health practices through the lens of multispecies marginalization, Oswaldo challenges us to reconsider the economic interests that often overshadow the well-being of both animals and humans. Date Recorded: 28 August 2024. Oswa...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 52 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Anindita Bhadra joins Claudia on the show to explain what behavioural ecology is and how it has been applied to understanding the free-roaming dogs in India. They discuss the interconnections between domestication and evolution, the social organization of free roaming dogs, and dogs relationships with urban ecologies. Date Recorded: 16 August 2024. Anindita Bhadra is a behavioural biologist, working on free-ranging dogs in India. She founded The Dog Lab at the Department of Biological Sciences, ...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 7Ep. 4
In this episode Mariam Motamedi-Fraser joins us in the show to discuss ‘species story’ a concept she developed in her book Dog Politics . We discuss how the human-dog bond has been established and maintained through modern day practices and scientific discourses which have implications for how dogs can live. Date Recorded: 31 July 2024. Mariam Motamedi Fraser is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the interdisciplinary research group UCL Anthropocene, in the Department of Geography. Her resear...
Nov 18, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Gwendolyn Blue and Melanie Rock join Claudia on the show to discuss ‘healthy publics.’ They explore how the idea of ‘public health’ has persistently been conceived of as human and unpack some of the opportunities and challenges with conceiving of multispecies health. From the historical roots of the ‘One Health’ to the modern challenges of public participation and representation, Melanie and Gwendolyn offer thought-provoking perspectives on stretching health frameworks beyond humans. Date Record...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 52 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Guillem Rubio-Ramon and Krithika Srinivasan join Claudia to kick of Season 7 which is focused on “multispecies health.” They discuss human-dog relations and how multispecies health involves components of care, indifference and violence. Date Recorded: 7 June 2024. Guillem Rubio-Ramon is a Research Associate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. His research integrates more-than-human geographies and political ecologies to study the reciprocal influence of animals and humans on each ...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Claudia talks to scientist and author, Alexandra Horowitz about dogs’ cognition. They discuss everything from dogs’ sense of smell and capacity to play to how anthropomorphisms sometimes skew human understandings of what dogs are doing. Date Recorded: 15 August 2024 Alexandra Horowitz heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College, where she also teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Inside of...
Nov 03, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik join Claudia on the show to talk about their recent book Our Kindred Creatures . They discuss how the late 19th century was a time of immense change for Americans and their relationships with animals became increasingly contradictory. Date Recorded: 15 July 2024 Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus , was a L...
Oct 28, 2024•1 hr 18 min
Bonus: Animals in Media Together with Arukah Animal International, The Animal Turn co-hosted a panel discussion focused on "Animals in Media". Using a video about animalized hierarchies in contagion films as a prompt, Claire Parkinson, Susan McHugh, and Tobias Linné engaged in an open-ended about media, representation, power, and activism. Date Recorded: 22 May 2024 Claire Parkinson is Professor of Culture, Communication and Screen Studies and Co-director of the Centre for Human Animal Studies a...
Oct 08, 2024•2 hr 2 min
Award-winning journalist Sandra Bartlett joins us to uncover the unsettling realities of fish farming in British Columbia with her impactful podcast, "The Salmon People." We discuss some of the social and environmental controversies surrounding salmon farming in Canada including the interconnections between wild and farmed salmon in the region, how sea lice have devastated marine populations, and the ways in which indigenous groups are resisting industry interests. Date Recorded: 8 May 2024 Sand...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Using Carol Gigliotti’s book “The Creative Lives of Animals” as a backdrop, this episode explores animals and the creative process. From the artistic intricacies of humpback whales' bubble-net feeding to the sophisticated communication skills of prairie dogs, Carol guides us through a world where animals demonstrate remarkable creativity, highlighting how they make meaning for themselves. Date Recorded: 6 March 2024 Carol Gigliotti is an author, artist, animal activist, and scholar whose work fo...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 15 min
Using his book Through a Vet’s Eyes as a backdrop, Claudia talks to Sean Wensley about veterinary ethics and animal welfare. They discuss some of Sean’s experiences as a vet as well as some of the challenges vets face in representing animals’ interests. Date Recorded: 20 February 2024 Sean Wensley is Senior Veterinarian for Animal Welfare and Professional Engagement at the UK veterinary charity, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA). He was President of the British Veterinary Associati...
Aug 12, 2024•1 hr 18 min
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 significa...
Jul 29, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 6Ep. 11
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 c...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 6Ep. 10
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 fo...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 6Ep. 9
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...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 6Ep. 8
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 ...
Jan 15, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 7
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 Po...
Dec 26, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Season 6Ep. 6
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...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Season 6Ep. 5
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 an...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Season 6Ep. 4
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...
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 6Ep. 3
In this episode, Claudia talks to Angie Pepper about cosmopolitanism. Angie explains how despite cosmopolitans having an expansive view of justice, animals are rarely accounted for. They discuss the challenges of including animals in cosmopolitan thought and mull over what animals might be entitled to. Date Recorded: 24 August 2023. Angie Pepper is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton in London. Angie's philosophical background is in contemporary political philosophy, ...
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Season 6Ep. 2
Claudia launches Season 6 by talking to Will Kymlicka about politics. They discuss how animals remain largely sidelined in political philosophical thought, as compared to other areas of ethics and social theory. Will delves into three different models for how to bring animals into politics: politics “on behalf of” animals, where humans represent animals; politics “by” animals, where wild animals exercise self-government; and politics “with” animals, where humans and animals do politics together ...
Oct 22, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 6Ep. 1
The Animal Turn has been shortlisted in two categories of the upcoming International Women's Awards to be held on the 6th of November 2023. You can hear the nominated clips in this episode. The Animal Turn was shortlisted in "Moment of Insight from a Role Model" for the conversation between Jeff Sebo and Claudia Hirtenfelder about the im/possibility of change in human-animal relations. It was also shortlisted in "Changing the World One Moment at a Time" for the conversation with Yamini Narayanan...
Oct 20, 2023•24 min
