The Animal Turn

Claudia Hirtenfelder

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. Each season is set around themes with each episode unpacking a particular animal turn concept and its significance therein. Join PhD Candidate Claudia Hirtenfelder as she delves into some of the most important ideas emerging out of this recent turn in scholarship, thinking, and being.

  • 1 hour 46 minutes
    S7E6: Compassionate Conservation with Daniel Ramp

    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 conservation biologist specializing in transdisciplinary approaches to coexistence and sustainability. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where he is an Associate Professor in the Transdisciplinary School. He leads the development of research, teaching, and public outreach in the centre, where the goal is to stimulate innovation, novel research, and conservation practices that promote multispecies flourishing. Dan conducts research on compassionate conservation, wild animal welfare, environmental ethics, and wildlife ecology, while also collaborating widely with other disciplines. He has led many large research projects, working with government and industry to engage in evidenced-based policy transformation that promote multispecies coexistence and sustainability, particularly in production landscapes around the world. His passion is reimagining what nature conservation can be and who it is for.

     

    Featured: 


     Thank you to A.P.P.L.E for sponsoring this podcast and ROH Indies

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    13 January 2025, 5:00 am
  • 1 hour 51 minutes
    S7E5: Marginalized Multispecies Collectives with Oswaldo Santos Baquero

    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. 

    Oswaldo Santos Baquero is a professor in the Department of Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of São Paulo and in the Peripheries Research Group at the Institute of Advanced Studies. He coordinates the Multispecies Health Network (MUHE Network), dedicated to the (re)production of the good life (buen vivir) of marginalised multispecies collectives. He has a degree in veterinary medicine (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), a PhD in epidemiology from the University of São Paulo (USP), a post-doctorate in public health (USP) and a specialisation in data science (Johns Hopkins University). He works with and had published on matters related to decolonisation, biopolitics, political ecology and science and technology studies. 

    Featured: 

    Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics for sponsoring this podcast; Remaking One Health Indies for sponsoring this season; and the Phoenix Zones Initiative for sponsoring this episode. Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Rebecca Shen for her design work, Priyanshu Thapliyal fo

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Phoenix Zones Initiative
    An organization on a mission to change the policies and practices that drive the exploitation of vul

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    23 December 2024, 6:00 am
  • 1 hour 14 minutes
    S7E4: Behavioural Ecology with Anindita Bhadra

    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, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata in June 2009. She has written about dogs in leading journals such as PloS One, Animal Cognition, Ethology, Ecology and Evolution. Connect with Anindita Bhadra on X (@Abhadra7). 

    “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” - Theodosius Dobzhansky

    Featured: 

     
    Animal Highlight: Rashmi Singh Rana tells us more about guard dogs, this time delving into the lives of Simru and Sheru a mother-son duo working in the  trans-Himalayas.

     
    Remember to Leave a Review on  Podchaser and to check out The Animal Turn Merch. You can also support the show financially via Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout. 


    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; Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Rebecca Shen for her design

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    3 December 2024, 7:00 am
  • 1 hour 33 minutes
    S7E3 - Species Story with Mariam Fraser Motamedi

    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 research is located in the field of animal studies. She is particularly interested in the implications, for animals, of the concepts and theories that are deployed to ‘explain’ them in both science and non-science research. Mariam is the author of three monographs and two co-edited collections, and has published in a wide range of journals. Her most recent book, Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences (Manchester University Press, 2024), is a critical analysis of the idea that relationality-with-humans somehow constitutes dogs’ evolutionary destiny. The book is partly informed by her experience of volunteering at The Dog Hub, a dog training and behavioural centre in London. She is strongly committed to teaching animal studies, and to the transformative experience that learning about animals in a structured setting offers students ( [email protected]).

     

    Featured: 

     

    Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics for sponsoring this podcast; Remaking One Health Indies for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_)

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    18 November 2024, 9:00 am
  • 1 hour 52 minutes
    S7E2 - Healthy Publics with Melanie Rock and Gwendolyn Blue

    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 Recorded: 2 July 2024. 

     

    Melanie Rock is a professor at the University of Calgary is in the Department of Community Health Sciences. Since joining the University of Calgary’s medical school in 2003, Melanie has drawn on her training in anthropology, health promotion, and social work in a series of projects centered on multi-species research. These projects have spanned community services, family dynamics, and social policy. The funders have included the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. To date, Melanie has led or co-authored more than 100 scholarly publications. 

     

    Gwendolyn Blue is a critical interpretive social scientist who conducts research on environmental governance, public science, and participatory practice. Her focus is primarily on symbolic and epistemic politics (e.g. how issues are represented, whose expertise counts, which values matter), and how these politics influence participatory engagement across issues such as climate change, genomics, and zoonotic disease. She is particularly interested in identifying the assumptions, values, and contexts that ‘open up’ and ‘close down’ inclusive engagement. 

    Featured: 


    Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring th

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Phoenix Zones Initiative
    An organization on a mission to change the policies and practices that drive the exploitation of vul

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    11 November 2024, 5:00 am
  • 1 hour 28 minutes
    S7E1: Multispecies Health with Guillem Rubio-Ramon and Krithika Srinivasan

    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-Ramonis 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 other's socio-cultural, economic and political lives. He is currently involved in the Remaking One Health – Indies project, which explores everyday interactions between people and free-living dogs in India. His PhD research examined how nonhuman animals, particularly those involved in pig farming in Catalonia and salmon aquaculture in Scotland, can be understood as essential actors in the nation-making projects of these regions.

     

    Krithika Srinivasan is a Professor of Political Ecology 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: 

    • Remaking One Health Indies Project
    • Hybrid Publics of Human and Other-than-Human Life: Free-Living Dogs and the “Green” and “Healthy” City in India by Krithika Srinivasan and Guillem Rubio Ramon


    Thank you to A.P.P.L.E for sponsoring this podcast, ROH Indies for sponsoring this season, Gordon Clarke for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, Rebecca Shen for design work, Priyanshu Thapliyal for the Animal Highlight, and Christiaan Mentz for audio editing. 

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Remaking One Health (ROH) Indies
    This project investigates people-dog interactions, dog ecology, and rabies prevention efforts in urb

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    4 November 2024, 7:00 pm
  • 1 hour 15 minutes
    Bonus: Exploring Dog Cognition with Alexandra Horowitz

    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 a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know and four other books, most recently The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves. She lives with her family of Homo sapiens, Canis familiaris, and Felis catus in New York City. 

     

    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. Contact Claudia via email ([email protected]) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne). 

     

    Featured: 


    Thank you to A.P.P.L.E for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, and Rebecca Shen for her design work. This episode was edited and produced by the host Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder. 

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals 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 show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    3 November 2024, 12:00 pm
  • 1 hour 17 minutes
    Bonus: Kindred Creatures with Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik

    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 Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. They live in Brooklyn, New York.

     

    Featured: 

     

    Rate us on Podchaser and check out our Merch Store.

     

    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, Jeremy John for the logo. This episode was edited and produced by the show host Claudia Hirtenfelder.  

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals 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 show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    28 October 2024, 5:00 am
  • 2 hours 1 minute
    Bonus: Animals in Media

    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 at Edge Hill University. Her publications include the books Popular Media and Animals (2011), Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism (2012), Animals, Anthropomorphism and Mediated Encounters (2019) and Animal Activism On and Off Screen (2024). Connect with Claire on Twitter (@molloy_claire).

    Susan McHugh, Professor of English at the University of New England, USA, researches and teaches literary, visual, and scientific narratives of cross-species relations.  She is the author of three monographs, most recently Love in a Time of Slaughters: Human-Animal Stories Against Genocide and Extinction (2019), and coeditor of six edited collections, including Animal Satire (2023). McHugh serves as co-editor of two book series, Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature and Plants and Animals: Interdisciplinary Approaches, as well as Editor-in-Chief of Society & Animals.

    Tobias Linné is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication and Media. His research explores veganism and how animals are made accessible for human consumption. In 2012, Tobias launched the course Critical Animals Studies. Animals in Society, Culture and the Media and he was later the coordinator for the project “Exploring ‘the Animal Turn’: Changing perspectives on human-animal relations in science, society and culture.” In 2016, Tobias co-founded the Critical Animal Studies Network.


    Featured: 

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.

    Arukah Animal International
    Arukah Animal International seeks to end animal exploitation through advocacy, awareness, & the arts

    Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

    Support the show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    8 October 2024, 6:00 pm
  • 1 hour 3 minutes
    Bonus: The Salmon People Podcast with Sandra Bartlett

    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


    Sandra Bartlett is an award-winning journalist based in Toronto.  She worked as a producer and reporter in NPR's Investigative Unit based in Washington. In 20 plus years at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she worked around the world – from Guantanamo Bay to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda, and Israel. She now produces investigative podcast series. The Poison Detectives follows how a firefighter’s wife and a corporate lawyer in different parts of the U.S. get pulled into solving separate mysteries, cows and deer haemorrhage to death in West Virginia and something that could be giving firefighters cancer. The Salmon People, the focus of this episode, tells the story of government malfeasance and industry collaboration to farm salmon on the Pacific Ocean waterways in British Columbia.  Verified: Dust Up is about the dangers of Johnson & Johnson baby powder and the risk of ovarian cancer.  


    Featured:
     The Salmon People, a podcast by Sandra Bartlett.

    A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming by Stephen Hume, Alexandra Morton et al.

    What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe. 

    The Animal Highlight, a sister podcast 


    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

    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals 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 show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    9 September 2024, 8:00 am
  • 1 hour 15 minutes
    Bonus: Creativity with Carol Gigliotti

    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 focuses on the reality of animals’ lives as important contributors to the biodiversity of this planet. She is Professor Emerita of Design and Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr University of Design, Vancouver, BC. Canada. Her book, The Creative Lives of Animals, (NYU Press, 2022) challenges the current assumptions of creativity, offering a more comprehensive understanding through recognizing animal creativity, cognition, consciousness, and agency. She is the editor of the book, Leonardo’s Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals (Springer, 2009) and the author of numerous book chapters and journal essays on animals. Her work is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Sitka Center for the Arts, and Coppermoss, among others. Gigliotti is on several international advisory boards concerned either with media or animal studies and regularly reviews books in critical animal studies. Learn more about Carol on her website. 

    Featured: 


    Send us a message

    A.P.P.L.E
    Animals 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 show

    The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. It can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, X, LinkedIn, You Tube, BlueSky and Instagram Learn more about the show on our website.

    26 August 2024, 4:00 am
  • More Episodes? Get the App
© MoonFM 2025. All rights reserved.