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Dr Erika Cudworth

Job: Associate Professor in Education

Faculty: Health and Life Sciences

School/department: School of Applied Social Sciences

Address: Portland 1.23a, Âé¶čÆ””À, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: 0116 366 4622

E: erika.cudworth@dmu.ac.uk

 

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Personal profile

Erika joined the Education team at DMU in February 2020, where she teaches in the politics of education and on modules focused on researching educational issues. Prior to joining DMU she worked in Social Sciences at the University of East London where she was Professor and taught in Sociology, Politics and International Relations.

Erika’s research expertise lies in the areas of human/animal studies, gender, the environment and posthumanism. She is particularly interested in questions of intersectionality and the persistence of complex inequalities considered at various levels from grounded empirical studies in localities, to the theorizing of global dynamics. Her empirical research has sought to examine the patterns which may be found in examining both cultural forms and material practices/institutions. Erika’s published work includes the books Developing Ecofeminist Theory (2005) and Social Lives with Other Animals (2011), and with Steve Hobden, Posthuman International Relations (2011) and The Emancipatory Project of Posthumanism (2018). Her new book, Animal Entanglements (2024) looks at relationships between people and dog companions and their everyday practices. Her current research is concerned with domestic violence and animal abuse, posthumanist theory, outdoor education for sustainability and home education.

Erika’s teaching over the years has involved an extended reflection on the nature of political power and the relationship between different kinds of state and publics. She has worked extensively in the teaching of research methods, and the politics and sociology of the environment and gender. 

Research group affiliations

  • Institute for Research in Social Sciences

Publications and outputs


  • dc.title: Companions, Captives, Kin: Domination and Affection in the Conceptualising of ‘Pets’ dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: This review article reflects on the idea of the pet, or animal companion. It is a response to the tension between the important role animal companions play in the lives of many people and the ways they are ill-treated and discarded. In examining this apparent anomaly, the paper revisits Yi-Fu Tuan’s conception of pets as produced through the nexus of domination and affection. For Tuan, there is no anomaly in demonstrating both kindness and cruelty towards pets because, while pets may be objects of affection, they are created through practices of manipulation and control. The paper endorses Tuan’s conception of pets as an exercise in domination but argues for a more nuanced conception which allows for the possibility of different kinds of relations. In so doing, it provides an alternative model of human domination which can be seen in the ‘making’ of pets, drawing on a study of people’s relationships and lives with dog companions in the UK. The paper argues for an inclusive concept of pets, involving various species, and which recognises that pet–human relations differ according to the species which are kept. Ultimately, the paper suggests that the terms, concepts and theories we use to understand pets and human relations with them needs to be open to the diversity of species of animal kept and the ways in which this impacts human relations with them. Attention also needs to be paid to the varied kinds of relationship people have with pets based on different kinds of regard for animals. The paper also considers future directions for research, making the case for a critical approach to pet studies. dc.description: open access article

  • dc.title: From godkin to oddkin: Love, friendship and kin making beyond the human family dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: Work within the sociology of the family and personal life has tended to proceed with little or no recognition of non-human members of the household. In the sociology of human–animal relations, however, ideas of multispecies families, multispecies households and animal companions (pets) as kin have been proposed in attempting to capture the close bonds between people and the animals they share their homes and lives with. Drawing on a UK ethnographic study, this article considers the emotional ties and affective relations people have with dog companions. The article argues that the sociological concept of the family is stretched in attempting to capture intra- species domestic relations. Haraway uses kin making to indicate that intimate relationality might be more widely drawn, beyond immediate human relatives to a range of people and beyond the human. Through a critical engagement with Haraway’s conception of ‘oddkin’, the article asks whether kin might be a more productive category in conceptualising intimate relations with animal companions. dc.description: open access article

  • dc.title: Animalizing International Relations dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E.; Hobden, Stephen dc.description.abstract: This article explores what it means to ‘animalise’ International Relations. The posthuman move in the social sciences has involved the process of de-centring the human, replacing an anthropocentric focus with a view of the human as embedded within a complex network of inter-species relations. In a previous work we drew attention to the lack of analysis within International Relations of the key role played by more-than human animals in situations of conflict. The current COVID-19 pandemic again indicates that an analysis of international relations that does not have at its core an understanding of a more than human world is always going to be an incomplete account. The paper argues for the animalising of International Relations in order to enhance inclusivity, and suggests five ways in which this might be approached. As it becomes increasingly clear that a climate-related collapse is imminent, we argue for a transformative approach to the discipline, stressing interlinked networks and a shared vulnerability as a political project which challenges capitalism (advanced/late/carboniferous/genocidal) and the failure of states to address the concatenation of crises that life on the planet confronts. dc.description: open access article

  • dc.title: ‘She always looked after me’: Revisiting reproductive labour and matters of care with/in companion species dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: For decades, Western feminism struggled to make visible, and account for, a whole range of everyday practices, behaviours and interactions that have been understood as unremarkable and assumed to be about love or emotional connection and obligation. These practices, naturalised and strongly gendered have been referred to as domestic or reproductive labour since they were identified in the 1960s and 70s. Feminist approaches in animal studies have long argued that there is a gendered ethics of care which links women to concern for other animals through everyday practices and relationships; and that the persistence of feminised private and masculinised public spheres involves gendered inequalities in the assumption of caring responsibilities. While feminist work on reproductive labour works within an exclusively-human frame, ecofeminist work on care has emphasised the practices and ethics of gendered care by humans for other animals. This chapter however, suggests the possibility of intra-species carework; that animals also care for humans. In so doing, the chapter contributes to the emerging literature on animal work by considering the possibility of carework undertaken by dogs in multi-species homes. The chapter examines the different forms of carework undertaken by human owners for dogs and by dogs for humans; through the concepts of carework, emotional labour and reproductive labour. Data is drawn from fifty-one semi-structured interviews which chart the practices and lived experiences of ‘responsible’ dog ‘owners’ who walk dogs regularly and have close bonds with them. The data indicates that the carework of humans and dogs can be understood as a set of emergent labour practices which come to matter in living with each other. The range of reproductive labour tasks already familiar to feminism, can both be extended to incorporate care for other animals and also overlap with some of the ways in which dog companions care for the humans with whom they are in relation.

  • dc.title: Zoonotic politics: the impossible bordering of the leaky boundaries of species dc.contributor.author: Hobden, Stephen; Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: Zoonotic pandemics shine uncomfortable light on how human lifeways facilitate the sharing of pathogens across species. Yet our lack of acknowledgement of our shared vulnerability with those non-human animals we raise or hunt to kill and eat, whose habitats we destroy and encroach upon, whose populations we undermine and threaten, has led us to the current human health crisis. The predominant political response to zoonotic pandemic has been bordering practices of surveillance, securitisation and bodily separation. These practices reflect intra-human and species hierarchies and fail to acknowledge the extent to which the boundaries of species are continually breached and are leaky. A posthumanist zoonotic politics seeks not to attempt to border the leaky boundaries of species, but rather to insist on a reordering of species relations towards less exploitative and extractive ways of sharing the planet with the myriad creatures that constitute our world. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

  • dc.title: Feminist Animal Studies: Theories, Practices, Politics dc.contributor.author: McKie, Ruth E.; Turgoose, Di; Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: Strands of feminist thinking have made an incisive critique of the ways in which gender and other intersecting differences and inequalities are constitutive of our destructive, exploitative and often violent relationships with non-human worlds. The essays in this collection take forward contemporary debates within feminism about our relationships with other animals and with each other. They showcase cutting edge work in the field of feminist animal studies by established scholars and newer voices in the field, working in cultural studies, criminology, geography, law, philosophy, politics, and sociology. Amongst the issues addressed in this collection are questions of animal being and animal rights, caring relations, the relationships between activism and theory and activism and trauma, interspecies sexual violence, tension in the animal defence movement around body politics, gender politics and professionalisation, different spaces of gender and animal relations from social media to sexology, safe spaces and sanctuaries, spaces of home – both in times of ‘business-as-usual’ and times of lockdown. In addition, important historical legacies in theory, empirical research and activism are acknowledged. The contributors add their collective voices to the many others arguing for profound change in the ways human being manage their relationships with the myriad other creatures with whom they share this planet; change for which revisioning relationships of gender and intersected inequalities will be imperative.

  • dc.title: Locating Feminist Animal Studies dc.contributor.author: McKie, Ruth E.; Turgoose, Di; Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: Feminism was engaged politically, theoretically and practically, largely with issues of human rather than human and non-human animal relations from the early second wave of feminist activism in the 1970s with the exception of visionaries for example, Adams (1976). Ecofeminist scholarship in particular (Adams, 1990/2000; Cudworth, 2005; Donovan, 2006; Kheel, 2008) has been central to the development of feminist animal studies (FAS). While Greta Gaard (2012) was right to observe that the intersectional observations of ecofeminist scholarship were ignored by much work in human-animal studies for twenty-five years, there is now increasing discussion of ‘entanglements’ of oppression theoretically (Cudworth, 2011) and the development of feminist multi-species methodologies (Birke, 2014; Gillespie, 2019). However, just as feminist scholarship has generated a diversity of theoretical framings, methodological innovations, and perspectives on various subjects, there has not been a singular feminist position on ‘the animal question’. Disputes have revolved around the assumptions underpinning women’s caring labour, questions of animal use and animal liberation and the use of animals as food, clothing and companions (see Adams, 1993; Diamond, 2008; Donovan, 2006; Haraway, 2008; Plumwood, 2004), and on the relationship between FAS, posthumanist and new materialist approaches (Weisberg, 2009; Cudworth, 2011). Feminist approaches have been critiqued for underplaying other elements such as the importance of race and culture in structuring species-based oppression (Deckha, 2012); while vegan scholars of colour have argued for the centrality of race in conceptualising veganism and our relationship to other animals (Harper, 2010; Ko & Ko, 2017). This introduction, therefore, locates FAS historically and theoretically, mapping the key areas of debate within the field and the ways these have resolved (or not) and shifted over time. The introduction also locates distinctly feminist approaches to animal studies in relation to other kinds of scholarship ‘on animals’, and (re)asserts the need for specifically feminist engagements (Cudworth, 2016; Fraser and Taylor, 2018; Gruen, 2015). It will argue that these approaches are needed to challenge human centrism and uncritical humanism in the feminist mainstream, providing depth and richness to critical animal scholarship more broadly. The introduction ends by introducing the structure of the book and the contributions to this collection, suggesting that these are bound by an appreciation of the precarious nature of animal lives, embodied materialism, and a commitment to intersectional analysis. These contributions explore a range of issues through different kinds of gender lenses, demonstrating the eclecticism, dynamism, and significance of the field.

  • dc.title: Working the dog: negotiating paid and reproductive labour in multi-species homes dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E.

  • dc.title: Bringing down the Animal Abuse Industry by Any Means Necessary: State-corporate-media alliance, the fragility of pro-meat propaganda and the possibilities of counter cultural intervention dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E.; White, Richard, J.

  • dc.title: Labors of love: Work, labor, and care in dog–human relations dc.contributor.author: Cudworth, E. dc.description.abstract: This paper suggests that the role of “pet” might be understood as a form of labor, and a condition shaped by human work. Drawing on an empirical study of everyday lives with companion dogs it considers how the work of humans outside the home impacts the lives of people and dogs; and the kinds of carework undertaken by both people and dogs in multispecies homes. The concept of paid work has been foundational in sociology while understanding work as unpaid, privatized and invisible reproductive labor has been secured through feminist interventions. Work, has been assumed to be human exclusive, but this has been recently challenged by research on animal work. This paper deploys (eco)feminist care theory to consider how far work, labor and care might be productive categories in understanding a hitherto neglected area - relationships with companion dogs. dc.description: open access article

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Key research outputs

ORCID identifier 0000-0002-5687-5581

Books and edited collections

(2024) Animal Entanglements: Muddied Living with Dog Companions, Rowman and Littlefield, pp.242. ISBN 9781538180198 

(2023) Feminist Animal Studies: Theories, Practices, Politics. (ed. with Ruth McKie and Di Turgoose) Routledge, pp. 252. ISBN 9781032120065 

(2021) Towards a Critically Posthumanist Sociology, double special issue International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. ISSN 0144-333X

(2018) The Emancipatory Project of Posthumanism (with Stephen Hobden) Interventions Series, Routledge, pp.180. ISBN 9781138673250,

(2018) Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations (ed. with Stephen Hobden and Emilian Kavalski), Routledge, pp. 295. ISBN 978-1-3156-1347-5

(2015) Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation (ed. with Anthony J. Nocella and Richard White) McFarland, pp.244. ISBN 978-0-7864-9457-6, 

(2013) Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures (ed. with Peter Senker and Kathy Walker) Peter Lang, pp.215. ISBN 978-1-4331-1042-9

(2011) Social Lives with Other Animals: Tales of Sex, Death and Love, Palgrave, pp. 220. DOI 10.1057/9780230302488,

(2011) Posthuman International Relations: Complexity, Ecologism and Global Politics, (with Stephen Hobden) Zed Books, pp.256. ISBN 978-1-780322216, 

(2007) The Modern State: Theories and Ideologies, Edinburgh University Press (with Tim Hall and John McGovern), pp.322. ISBN 978-0-7486-2176-7,

(2005) Developing Ecofeminist Theory: the Complexity of Difference, Palgrave, pp. 218. DOI 10.1057/9780230509276,

(2003) Environment and Society, Routledge, pp.232. DOI 10.4324/9780203994900. 

Journal articles

(2024) Companions, Captives, Kin: Domination and Affection in the Conceptualising of ‘Pets’. Pets, 1, 182–200, 

(2024). From godkin to oddkin: Love, friendship and kin making beyond the human family. The Sociological Review, 0(0). 

(2023) 'Animalising International Relations'. (with Steve Hobden) International Relations, 37(3), 398-422 

(2022) 'Zoonotic Politics: The Impossible Bordering of the Leaky Boundaries of Species', (with Steve Hobden)  Millennium, 50(3), 647-688. 

(2022) 'Labors of Love: Work, labor and care in dog-human relations', Gender, Work and Organization, 29(3), 830-844 

(2021) ‘Muddied living: making home with dog companions’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 41. 3/4 424-429 

(2021) 'Towards a Critically Posthumanist Sociology in Precarious Times', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 41, 3/4: 265-281 

(2018) “Now, where were we?’ The highs and lows of hunting data with a research pack’, Journal of Sociology special issue A Sociology of Multi-Species Relations? 54. 4: 488-503.

(2018) ‘Anarchism’s Posthuman Future’ (with Stephen Hobden) Anarchist Studies 26, 1: 79-104. ISBN 978-1-912064-92-2

(2017) ‘Posthuman Community in the Edgelands’ Society and Animals, 25, 4: 384-403.

(2017) ‘Anthropocene, Capitalocene and Liberal Cosmopolitan IR: A Response to Burke et al’s, ‘Planet Politics” (with David Chandler and Stephen Hobden) Millennium Journal of International Studies 46, 2: 190-208

(2016) ‘A Sociology for Other Animals? Analysis, advocacy and intervention’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 36, 3/4: 242-257.

(2015) ‘The Posthuman Way of War’ (with Stephen Hobden) Security Dialogue. 46, 6: 513-529.

(2015) ‘Killing Animals: Sociology, species relations and institutionalised violence’ The Sociological Review, 63, 1: 1-18.

(2015) ‘Liberation for Straw Dogs? Old materialism, new materialism and the challenge of an emancipatory posthumanism’ (with Stephen Hobden) Globalizations, Special Issue ‘Occupying Subjectivity: Being and Becoming Radical in the Twenty-First Century’, 12, 1: 134-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2014.971634

(2014) ‘Civilization and the Animal’ (with Stephen Hobden) Millennium Journal of International Studies, 42, 2: 746-766.

(2014) ‘Analyzing Change: complex rather than dialectical?’ (with Stephen Hobden) Globalizations, Special Issue ‘Dialectics and World Politics’, 11, 5: 627-642. 

(2013) ‘Of Parts and Wholes: International Relations Beyond the Human’ (with Stephen Hobden) Millennium Journal of International Studies, 41, 3: 430-450. 

(2013) ‘Complexity, Ecologism and Posthuman Politics’ (with Stephen Hobden), Review of International Studies, 39, 3: 643-664. 

(2012) ‘Foundations of Complexity, and the Complexity of Foundations: Beyond the Foundation/Anti-Foundational Debate’ (with Stephen Hobden) Philosophy of Social Sciences, 42, 2: 163-187.

(2012) ‘Securança do que e para quem? Desquilades mứltiplas e complexas e a polίtica envolvida na securançe ambiental na Europa’, (with Stephen Hobden) Interfacehs, 6, 3: 117-131 (‘Securing What for Whom? Multiple Complex Inequalities and the Politics of Environmental Security in Europe’ (with Stephen Hobden), Interfaces)

(2011) ‘Walking the Dog: Explorations and Negotiations of Species Difference’ Philosophy, Activism, Nature, 8: 14-22. 

(2011) ‘Climate Change, Industrial Animal Agriculture and Complex Inequalities’ The International Journal of Science in Society, 2, 3: 323-334. 

(2011) ‘Beyond Environmental Security: Complex Systems, Multiple Inequalities and Environmental Risks’, (with Stephen Hobden) Environmental Politics, 20, 1: 42-59.* 

(2010) ‘Anarchy and Anarchism: Towards a Theory of Complex International Systems’ (with Stephen Hobden) Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39, 2: 399-416.

(2010) “The Recipe for Love’? Continuities and Changes in the Sexual Politics of Meat’ The Journal for Critical Animal Studies, 8, 4: 78-99. ISSN 1948-352X 

(2009) ‘The Politics of Arts and Events: Social Capital and “Community Cohesion” in East London’, (with Judith Burnett) Rising East Online: The Journal of East London Studies 9a, 15.

(2009) ‘More than a Metaphor: Complexity Theory in the Social Sciences’, (with Stephen Hobden) The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 4, 4: 59-69.

(2008) ‘The Good Citizen: Problematising Citizenship in the Social Sciences Curriculum’, (with Judith Burnett) Learning and Teaching: the International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences Winter 2008 1, 3: 67-88.

(2008) ‘Archipelagic Nations: Situating Citizenship in Education’, (with Judith Burnett) The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 3, 4: 145-154. 

(2008) “Most Farmers Prefer Blondes’ – Dynamics of Anthroparchy in Animals’ Becoming Meat’, The Journal for Critical Animal Studies, 6, 1: 32-45. ISSN 1948-352X 

(2007) ‘Complexity Theory and the Sociology of Natures’, The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 2, 3: 351-358.

Book chapters

(2024) Resisting Zoopolis: bordering species relations as a response to COVID-19, in J. Browne and Z. Sutton (eds) Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crisis: Multispecies Sociology for the Now-Normal, Routledge. ISBN 9781032180397

(2023) "She always looked after me': Revisiting reproduictive labour and matters of care with/in companion species', in E. Cudworth, R.E. McKie and Di Turgoose (eds.) Feminist Animal Studies: Theory, Practice, Politics, Routledge, pp. 118-133 

(2022) 'Working the Dog: The organisation of space, time and labor in multispecies homes', in L. Hamilton and L. Tallberg (eds.)  Animal Organisation Studies, Oxford University Press, pp.115-128. 

(2022) ‘Bringing down the Animal Abuse Industry by Any Means Necessary: state-corporate-media alliance, the fragility of pro-meat propaganda and the possibilities of counter cultural intervention’ (with Richard White) in Radical Animal Studies ed. Anthony J. Nocella, Lantern Books, pp.37-55. ISBN 9781433191572

(2021) 'Posthuman International Relations', (with Stephen Hobden) in International Relations in the Anthropocene (eds.) D.Chandler and D. Roth, Routledge. ISBN 9783030530136

(2018) ‘Farming and Food’, in C. Levy and M. Adams (eds) The International Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave, pp. 641-658.

(2018) ‘Epilogue: Beyond the Anthropocentric Partitioning of the World’, in Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations (ed. with Stephen Hobden and Emilian Kavalski), Routledge. ISBN 978-1-3156-1347-5  

(2018) ‘Introduction: Framing the Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations’ in Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations (ed. with Stephen Hobden and Emilian Kavalski), Routledge. ISBN 978-1-3156-1347-5 

 38. (2018) 'The Posthuman Way of War' (with Stephen Hobden) in Posthuman Dialogues in International Relations (ed. with Stephen Hobden and Emilian Kavalski) Routledge. ISBN 981-1-3156-1347-5 

(2017) ‘Breeding and Rearing Farmed Animals’, in H. Pierpoint, J. Maher and P. Beirne (eds) The International Handbook on Animal Abuse Studies. Palgrave, pp: 159-178.  

(2017) ‘Posthuman Insecurity’ (with Stephen Hobden), in A. Burke and R. Floyd eds. Global Insecurity: Futures of chaos and governance. Palgrave, pp. 65-81. 

(2016) ‘On Ambivalence and Resistance: Carnism and Diet in Multispecies Households’, in A. Potts (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Meat Culture. Brill, pp.222-242

(2016) ‘Liberation for Straw Dogs? Old materialism, new materialism and the challenge of an emancipatory posthumanism’ (with Stephen Hobden) Occupying Subjectivity: Being and Becoming Radical in the Twenty-First Century, Routledge, pp. 133-146. ISBN 13 978-1-138-1206-3

(2016) ‘Ecofeminism and the Animal’, in M. Phillips and N. Rumens (eds) Contemporary Perspectives on Ecofeminism. Routledge, pp. 38-56. ISBN 978-1-138-01974-4

(2016) ‘Puppy Love? Companion Animals in the Media’, (with Tracey Jensen) in N. Almiron, M.C. Cole and C.P. Freeman (eds) Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Routledge, pp. 185-200. ISBN-13: 978-1-1388-4226-7

(2015) ‘Dialectics and Complexity’ (with Stephen Hobden), in S. Brinncat (ed.) Dialectics and World Politics. Routledge, pp.  ISBN: 978-0-4156-2527-2

(2015) ‘Human Domination and Other Animals’, in A. J. Nocella, E. Cudworth and R. White (eds) (2015) Anarchism and Animal Liberation: Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation. (eds. with Anthony J. Nocella and Richard White) McFarland, pp. 93-107. ISBN 978-1-4331-1042-9

(2015) ‘Complexifying International Relations for a Posthumanist World’, (with Stephen Hobden) in E. Kavalski (ed.) World Politics at the Edge of Chaos: Complexity and Global Life. SUNY, pp. 169-188. ISBN 978-1-4384-5607-2

(2014) ‘Beyond Speciesism: Theorizing the Social Domination of Other Animals’ in N. Taylor and R. Twine (eds) The Rise of Critical Animal Studies: From the Margins to the Centre. Routledge, pp. 19-35. 

(2014) ‘Challenging Systems of Domination from Below’ (with Richard White) in A. J. Nocella, J. Sørenson, K. Socha, and A. Matsuoka (eds) Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation. Peter Lang, pp. 202-220.

(2014) ‘„Prezpis na miłość”? Kontynuacje i zmiany w płciowej polityce mięsa’, Śmierć Zwierzęcia: Współczesne Zootanatolgoie, (ed.) Marzena Kotyczka, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. (“The Recipe for Love’? Continuities and Changes in the Sexual Politics of Meat’, The Death of the Animal: Contemporary Zoothanatologies, University of Silesia, pp. 55-78) ISBN 978-83-226-2381-7

(2013) ‘Feminism’ in C. Death (ed.) Critical Environmental Politics. Routledge, pp. 91-100. ISBN: 978-0-4156-3122-8

(2013) ‘Climate Change, Industrial Animal Agriculture and Complex Inequalities: Developments in the Politics of Food Insecurity’, in E. Cudworth, P. Senker and K. Walker (eds.) Technology, Society and Inequality. Peter Lang, pp. 47-60. ISBN 978-1-4331-1042-9

(2013) ‘Introduction – Contested Futures, Technology, Inequality and Progress’, (with Peter Senker and Kathy Walker) in E. Cudworth, P. Senker and K. Walker (eds.) Technology, Society and Inequality. Peter Lang, pp. 1-16. ISBN 978-1-4331-1042-9

(2013) ‘Conclusion – New Horizons and Contested Futures’, (with Peter Senker and Kathy Walker) in E. Cudworth, P. Senker and K. Walker (eds.) Technology, Society and Inequality. Peter Lang, pp. 167-180. ISBN 978-1-4331-1042-9

(2011) “Most farmers prefer Blondes’ – Entanglements of Gender and Nature in Animals’ Becoming-meat’, in R. Carter and N. Charles (eds) Human and Other Animals: Critical Perspectives. Palgrave, pp. 153-172.

(2010) ‘Complexity, ‘Nature’ and Social Domination: Towards a Sociology of Species Relations’, in J. Burnett, S. Jeffers and G. Thomas (eds) New Social Connections: Sociology’s Subjects and Objects. Palgrave, pp. 85-104.

(2010) ‘Educating the Outcast: Policy and Practice in the Education of Gypsy Traveller Children’, (with David Cudworth) in L. Ang, J. Trushell and P. Walker (eds.) Learning and Teaching in a Metropolis. Rodolpi, pp. 27-48. ,

(2009) ‘Environmental Insecurity’, (with Stephen Hobden) in H. Fagan, and R. Munck (eds.) The Encyclopedia of Globalization and Security: Volume One- Economic and Political Aspects. Praeger, pp. 79-100. ISBN 978-0-275-99696-3

(2009) ‘Nature, Culture, Technology: Myths and Inequalities in the Posthuman Zoo’ in J. Burnett, P. Senker and K. Walker (eds.) The Myths of Technology: Innovation and Inequality. Peter Lang, pp. 131-144. ISBN: 9781433101281

(2008) ‘Seeing and Believing: Gender and Species Hierarchy in Contemporary Cultures of Animal Food’ in D. Grummett and R. Meurs (eds.) Eating and Believing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vegetarianism and Theology. Continuum/T&T Clark, pp. 168-183. ISBN 978-0-5672-6795-5

(2004) ‘Women on Derive: Autobiographical Explorations of Lived Spaces’ (with Judith Burnett and Maria Tamboukou) in Feminism and Geography Reconsidered, Women in Geography Study Group (eds.) 

Research interests/expertise

  • qualitative research methods (particularly mobile methodologies and multi-species ethnography)
  • contemporary social and political theory (complexity approaches, feminisms, new materialism, political ecologism, critical posthumanism)
  • sociology of difference and intersectional inequalities
  • citizenship and education
  • critical animal studies (companion species, farmed animals, feminist approaches)
  • critical pedagogy (eco pedagogy, new materialism, decolonisation)

Areas of teaching

  • social theory
  • politics of education
  • research methods
  • environmental education

Qualifications

  • PhD Sociology, University of Leeds
  • PGCE Social Studies, Institute of Education (UCL)
  • MSc Political Sociology, LSE
  • BSoc.Sc. Political Science, University of Birmingham

Courses taught

  • EDUC 2402 Research Methods
  • EDUC 3404 Dissertation

Membership of professional associations and societies

  • BSA (British Sociological Association)
  • BISA (British International Studies Association)
  • EACAS (European Association for Critical Animal Studies)
  • IPSA (International Political Science Association)

Professional licences and certificates

PCGE Social Studies (Institute of Education, London University)

Projects

Erika is currently engaged with a number of projects.

A co-authored book project with Dr. Matthew Cole from the Open University. The book, Animalizing Sociology, will revisit ‘classical’ social theory with posthumanist lenses.

A Canadian study of carework in multiespecies homes with Dr. Andrea Breen, Prof. Lauren van Patter and Prof. Carla Rice, University of Guelph.

New projects developing further co-authored work with Dr. Steve Hobden from the University of East London in posthumanist theory and on the human-animal-technical assemblages of securitisation displacement looking at animals as forced migrants.

An edited book with the DMU education team  Educating Young People for Sustainable Futures

A qualitative study of home schooling in London and Leicester with Emma Wright (DMU)

Forthcoming events

 

Conference attendance

Select conference papers include:

'Multispecies ethnography: humans and dogs in muttispecies households' International Congress of Qualitative Enquiry, Illinois, 29th-31st May 2024.

'Companion animals and domestic violence and abuse: the intersection feminism forgot?' (with Di Turgoose) and 'From Godkin to Oddkin: humans and dogs in mutlspeices households' Annual Conference of the British Sociological Association, online, 3rd-5th April, 2024.

'Cybords, companions, kin: Rethinking posthumanist intimacies with Haraway', STS Italia conference, University of Bologna, Italty, 28th June 2023.

"Utopian action is survival action': Anthroparchy, capitalocene and a sociology of existential threat', International Association of Vegan Sociologists Annual Conference, online, 10th October 2021.

‘Bringing down the Animal Abuse Industry by Any Means Necessary: State-corporate-media alliance and the fear of counter-cultural intervention’ (with Richard J. White) Rethinking revolution: non-human animals, antispeciesm and power.  6th Conference of the European Association for Critical Animal Studies, Barcelona, Catalonia, 24th May, 2019.

‘Human uplift and animal oppression – ‘becoming civilized”, Anarchist Studies Network Conference, University of Loughborough, UK, 12th-14th September 2018.

‘For Terraism: excavating multispecies community in a time of extinction’, 5th Annual European Conference for Critical Animal Studies, University of Lund, Sweden, 26th-28th October 2017.

“It Smells Good to Me’: Embodied affectivity in the posthuman home’, British Animal Studies Network, ‘Smelling’, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow UK, 20th-21st May, 2016.

‘Posthuman Community in the Edgelands’, British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of Aston, Birmingham UK, 6th-8th April 2016.

‘Dogs on TV: Class, gender and the disruptive potential of the mongrel domestic’ (with Tracey Jensen), British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of Aston, Birmingham UK, 6th-8th April 2016.

‘Anarchism’s Posthuman Future’ (with Stephen Hobden), Association of American Geographers Annual Convention, San Francisco, USA, 29th March-2nd April, 2016.

‘Overcoming the Denial of Nature: a Posthuman Perspective’ (with Stephen Hobden) Non-humans and Politics conference, Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie, Hannover, Germany, January 22nd-23rd 2016.

‘The Posthuman Way of War’, (with Stephen Hobden), Posthuman International Relations panel, International Studies Association Annual Convention, New Orleans, USA 18th-21st February 2015.

‘On Ambivalence and Resistance: Carnism and Diet in Multispecies Households’, Minding Animals Conference, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, 13th-20th January 2015.

Consultancy work

Member of the Academic Consultative Committee of the Vegan Society, UK. 

Current research students

Jana Canavan The Limits of Anthropocentric Liberty: Towards an Inclusion of Other Animals (external supervisor, University of Lund)

Tasnina Karim The Adolescent Gender-Gap and Education for Sustainability (DMU)

Julia Linares-Roake Caregiving in Multispecies Families (external supervisor, University of Guelph)

 Meera Naran Public Policy Change: The Moral Entrepreneur (DMU)

Externally funded research grants information

(2022-25) International co-Investigator 'Family carework in interspecies homes', with University of Guelph, Canada. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Professional esteem indicators

Reviewer of book proposals and manuscripts for publishing houses including: Ashgate, Brill, Common Ground, Continuum, Routledge, Palgrave, Peter Laing, Polity, Rowman and Littlefield and Zed.

Reviewer of papers for academic journals including: Animals, Antipode, Agriculture and Human Values, Configurations, European Journal of International Relations, Food Culture and Society, Frontiers of Sociology, Gender and Education, Hypatia, International Relations, Millennium, Science and Society, Security Dialogue, Signs, Society and Animals, Social Problems, Sociology, The Sociological Review, Theory Culture and Societyand Women’s Studies International Forum.

Book reviews editor for Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses 2012-18.

Grant assessor for proposals for ESRC, ISRF and Leverhulme

Member of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Dog Welfare, Domestic Violence and on Vegetarianism and Veganism.

Member of the Academic Consultative Committee of the Vegan Society, UK. 

Keynote and invited talks

Select papers include:

'Borders, boundaries and encounters in relations with non-human animals', The Annual Conference of the Westermarck Society, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, 22nd March, 2024 

'The Power Politics of Nature', Pan-European Conference on Intrernational Education, European Studies Association, Malta/online, 17th September 2021.

'Feminism and animal studies: Gender and Human-Animal Relations' hosted online by Institutul pentru Solidaritate Sociala and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Romania, 4th December 2020.

'Becoming with Animal Others: Animality and Postcolonial Entanglements', Millenium annual conference, LSE/online 22nd Octover 2022.

5. ‘Feminism, animal studies and the intersection between gender and human-animal relations’, Feminism meets animal studies lecture series, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 25th June 2019.

6. ‘The Posthuman Way of War’, Department of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 25th April 2019.

‘Posthuman Community in the Edgelands’, Department of Political Science, University of Lund, Sweden, 24th April, 2019.

‘Feminism, animal studies and the intersection between gender and human-animal relations’, Department of Media and Communications, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Catalonia, 21st February, 2019.

‘Uplifting the human and dominating the animal: imperialism, violence and the ‘Civilizing Process”, Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna, Austria, 11th April 2018.

‘The emancipatory project of posthumanism’, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Tampere, Finland, 11th December, 2017.

‘Uplifting the human and dominating the animal: imperialism, violence and the ‘Civilizing Process”, 5th Annual European Conference for Critical Animal Studies, Lund, Sweden, 26th-28th October 2017.

‘A Terraist Manifesto: excavating multispecies community in a time of extinction’, Power and the Chthulucene: Humanimal Discussions at the intersections of gender, sexuality, ability and race symposium, University of Uppsala, Sweden, 6th-7th April 2017.

‘Beyond the Imperial Human: towards a creaturely politics’, Department of History, Politics and International Relations, University of Loughborough, 8th February, 2017.

‘Emancipation in Posthuman Times’, at the Human and Nonhuman Animals: Liberation, History and Critical Animal Studies conference, Faculty of Human and Social Sciences/ New University of Lisbon (Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas - Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Portugal, 7th-8th October, 2015.

PhD students

Erika has supervised five projects to completion:

Dr. Maxine Newlands (awarded 2013)

Dr. Mary Lodato (2014)

Dr. Alex Williams (2016)

Dr. Camille Barbagallo (2016)

Dr Alex Thomas The Politics and Ethics of Transhumanism: Exploring Implications for the Future in Advanced Capitalism (2023)