“As an environmental humanities scholar, my work is interdisciplinary and draws particularly on environmental philosophy, environmental anthropology and anthrozoology. My research interests pivot around interspecies ethics and etiquette, looking at the role of worldviews, values and practices and how they affect such relations. Given the increasing urgency of biodiversity loss and the unravelling of planetary health, my current work focusses on the mechanics of shifting from viewing other creatures as mere symbols and resources to attending to them as fellow agents in a living system. Informed by feminist, continental, Eastern and Indigenous philosophies and practices, I see the problematizing of the nature/culture dualism alongside the recognition of human-kind as interconnected with larger communities of life on Earth as essential for human, animal and planetary well-being.

My current project, funded by Collaboratoire in conjunction with Plymouth University (UK) and Open University (Philippines), investigates notions and practices of ‘environmental empathy’ and is an interdisciplinary project with geographers, artists and social scientists. It plays with the role of the body and senses in environmental connection drawing on somatic and contemplative arts practices.

Other upcoming projects aim to build on this work by adopting a STEAM approach, interweaving ethological data, multispecies storytelling, embodiment and technology to investigate cross-species perspective-taking. It will investigate the effects of such interventions on cognitive and affective empathy as a means to explore the potentials and limitations of enacting multispecies communities.”