About
The Multispecies Collective is a collaborative group of researchers working together with practitioners, change-makers and future-oriented creatives to create knowledge, theory and practice for positive change toward futures of flourishing for animals, nature and society. We are hosted by the University of Birmingham.
Objectives
The Multispecies Collective pursues objectives in pursuit of multispecies flourishing which inform our collaborative work.
Produce research and practice
Generating inter/cross-disciplinary knowledge that conceptualises and instigates multispecies flourishing through legal, political, and societal change.
Maintain a community space
Facilitating mutual learning, mentoring, and collaboration towards our research goals.
Manage and connect with a network
Creating mutually beneficial exchanges between our research(ers) and a wider community of researchers (academics, students, and others), change-makers (activists, civil society organisations, lawyers, policymakers, and others), and future-oriented creatives (artists, designers, writers, and others) working toward multispecies flourishing.
Share resources and generate impact
Making our research available for a broad network interested in multispecies flourishing by organising events, sharing resources, and making impact.
Values
The Multispecies Collective is guided by a set of values which capture the nature of our collaboration.
Multispecies flourishing
-
Recognising threats to animal, ecological, and human flourishing have common roots and warrant intersectional responses,
-
We consider the interconnectedness of earthly ecosystems and communities, of animals, nature and society through efforts including prioritising marginal perspectives, decolonisation of thought and practice, and recognition of the researcher’s positionality.
Linking theory and practice
-
Recognising change toward multispecies flourishing is most likely to be achieved through practice-informed theoretical work and theory-informed practical work,
-
We inform our theoretical work with insight from practice, inform our practical work with insight from theory, and connect both forms of knowledge for and together with our network.
Change- and future-oriented
-
Recognising the status quo is antithetical to multispecies flourishing,
-
We orient our work toward meaningful change.
Interdisciplinarity
-
Recognising change toward multispecies flourishing is most likely to be achieved when knowledge exploration and generation transcend disciplinary siloes,
-
We bridge the core of our change-oriented work in the humanities and social sciences (law, policy, sociology) with work in the arts (literary, media and artistic studies and practice) and other disciplines and sources of knowledge (ecology, Indigenous knowledge, etc).
Plural thinking
-
Recognising that a plurality of thought and practice is beneficial rather than antithetical to multispecies flourishing whilst maintaining a commitment to kindness and compassion, innovation and radical thinking, and the amplification of marginal perspectives,
-
We create space for unlikely connections and productive tensions to arise from such pluralities and welcome all kinds of researchers and practitioners to be involved in our work.
Terminology
Our name and tagline were carefully selected to reflect our objectives and values to a broad, interdisciplinary and multi-sector network. Further insight is provided here.
Name
Multispecies
"Multispecies" represents the subjects included in our former name (the Animals, Nature & Society Research Group) in a single word. A multispecies approach reconsiders and reframes the foundations of the knowledge, methods and worldviews that shape our research. This reimagining entails three significant moves that closely reflect our objectives and values: - We question the centrality of human perspectives and concerns in the design and execution of intellectual and practical projects, problematising anthropocentrism. - We regard other-than-human species in a meaningful sense which attaches significance to their knowledges, frames, experiences, and being. - We favour relational contemplation over individual or species contemplation, focusing on entangled relations and blurring the strict boundaries we tend to think with. On account of critiques made of multispecies approaches, we closely attend to the following two considerations: - We deeply consider how colonial and capitalist theory and practice can undermine objectives of multispecies flourishing. - We deeply consider historically shaped imbalances and injustices amongst human subjects and between human and other-than-human beings.
Collective
We organise ourselves as a "collective" to indicate that we share collective and collaborative objectives and responsibilities in a more integrated fashion than a more loosely fashioned community. This also allows for reference to be made to the collective consciousness our objectives and values prioritise, and the collective responsibility we envisage in our group (and broader society) toward the achievement of multispecies flourishing. There is also the opportunity for a productive play on words, at times, considering the ‘corrective’ action we envisage building towards futures of multispecies flourishing in response to our rueing of human activity’s contribution to breached planetary boundaries.
Tagline
Futures
- We refer to plural "futures" rather than a singular "future" in recognition of the diverse multispecies perspectives that we work with and see value in. Our values strongly indicate the merit of thinking with regard to futures rather than a singular future. - “Futures” indicates that there are many possible futures that, at present, we may move toward and which we must work with (both in terms of their risks, and their possibilities). Recognising these many futures can be imagined will help us to focus on those that will best facilitate multispecies flourishing. - “Futures” opens space for multispecies perspectives, recognising that the reality we move toward will be experienced in different ways by different beings. - “Futures” highlights the many paths by which we may bring our theory into practice. - “Futures” reflects the different perspectives on the reality we move toward from different disciplines and from knowledge generated from interdisciplinary explorations. - “Futures” embeds plural thinking into our priorities.
Flourishing
- "Flourishing" is chosen as a useful reference over alternatives like rights, justice, health, welfare, or protection from suffering, harm, degradation and so on. - "Flourishing" is achieved and experienced differently by different beings. Multispecies thinking encourages reflection on these various forms of flourishing and it does not preclude value being attributed to the flourishing of any being. - "Flourishing" may not be attainable for all beings at all times. Just as claims to rights, justice, or welfare by different beings may clash or sit in tension with one another, so may aspirations to flourish. We work with such tensions from a multispecies perspective. - "Flourishing" evokes hopefulness and reflections on utopianism. Research and practice that is oriented toward futures of flourishing is, we consider, an innately valuable thing. - We rue the absence of flourishing for many beings and seek to correct this by researching utopian existence.
Areas of Expertise
Our members, affiliates and partners work toward multispecies flourishing by drawing from various areas of expertise.
Criminal Justice
Criminology
Stacy Banwell
Claire Lathwell
Climate Change
Humanities
Love Alfred (Climate Justice)
Stacy Banwell
Louisa Dassow
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Modern history
Humanities
Gray Black
Louisa Dassow
Biodiversity Conservation Law
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow
Sam Hazle
Iyan Offor
Veerle Platvoet
Bethan Smith
International Lawmaking
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow (UNFCCC, BBNJ)
Public International Law
Legal Studies
Mo Esan
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Sean Madden
Iyan Offor
Paula Sparks World Moot in International Law and Animal Rights (and policy)
Animal Policy
Policy and Governance
Guilherme de Azevedo
Claire Lathwell
Iyan Offor
Veerle Platvoet
European Institute for Animal Law & Policy
Sustainability
Policy and Governance
Love Alfred (Education and Sustainable Transition)
Intersectionality Theory
Social Sciences
Stacy Banwell
Louisa Dassow
Guilherme de Azevedo
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Sociopolitical Theory
Social Sciences
Gray Black
Sam Hazle (social justice)
Emily Jones
Green Criminology
Criminology
Stacy Banwell
Critical Animal Studies
Humanities
Mo Esan
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Multispecies Studies
Humanities
Love Alfred (Sustainable Development)
Stacy Banwell
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Environmental Law
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow (International)
Mo Esan (Comparative and African Context)
Sam Hazle (International)
Frida Hernandez Pena (constitutionalism)
Emily Jones
Claire Lathwell
Iyan Offor (International)
Veerle Platvoet (International)
Bethan Smith
European Institute for Animal Law & Policy
Paula Sparks World Moot in International Law and Animal Rights
Law of the Sea
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Socio-Legal Studies
Legal Studies
Guilherme de Azevedo
Emily Jones
Claire Lathwell
Iyan Offor
Enviromental Policy
Policy and Governance
Louisa Dassow
Claire Lathwell
Iyan Offor
Science and technology studies
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
Gray Black
Queer and feminist studies
Social Sciences
Gray Black
Louisa Dassow
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Animal Rights
Humanities
Stacy Banwell
Guilherme de Azevedo
Mo Esan
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Veerle Platvoet
Cultural Legal Studies
Humanities
Love Alfred
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor (Law and Literature)
Bethan Smith
Rights of Nature
Humanities
Stacy Banwell
Frida Hernandez Pena
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Human Rights Law
Legal Studies
Emily Jones
Claire Lathwell
Sean Madden (International)
Paula Sparks World Moot in International Law and Animal Rights (and policy)
Legal Theory
Legal Studies
Guilherme de Azevedo
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor (Critical Legal Theory and Ecolegalities)
Bethan Smith
Sociology of Constitutions
Legal Studies
Guilherme de Azevedo
Food Security
Policy and Governance
Sean Madden
Critical Race Theory
Social Sciences
Guilherme de Azevedo
Mo Esan (Intersection with Animal Law)
Social Systems Theory
Social Sciences
Guilherme de Azevedo
Anthropology
Humanities
Gray Black (and Anthrozoology)
Environmental Philosophy
Humanities
Gray Black (Ecosophy, and Philosophy more broadly)
Veerle Platvoet
Animal Law
Legal Studies
Guilherme de Azevedo
Mo Esan (Africa)
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Claire Lathwell
Sean Madden
Bethan Smith
Iyan Offor
Veerle Platvoet
Michelle Strauss
European Institute for Animal Law & Policy
Paula Sparks World Moot in International Law and Animal Rights
International Economic Law
Legal Studies
Sean Madden
Iyan Offor (International Trade and Animal Welfare)
European Institute for Animal Law & Policy
Marine Biodiversity Law
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow
Sam Hazle
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Bethan Smith
Third World Approaches to International Law
Legal Studies
Louisa Dassow
Mo Esan
Emily Jones
Iyan Offor
Just Transition
Policy and Governance
Love Alfred
Decoloniality Theory
Social Sciences
Mo Esan
Emily Jones
Social psychology
Social Sciences
Gray Black