Multispecies Collective Newsletter March 2026
- Sam Hazle
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
Welcome to the first Multispecies Collective newsletter. We've had a busy month welcoming new members, meeting our network and new friends at a range of events, and progressing our research projects behind-the-scences. Read on for updates on all of this and more!
Announcements | New Members | Recent Events | New Resources
Announcements
Multispecies Collective PhD Workshop Call for Papers Now Open
Following the success of our inaugural PhD workshop in 2025, we are delighted to present the 2nd Multispecies Collective PhD Workshop, which will take place on Tuesday 2nd June 2026 at the University of Birmingham.
This one-day workshop invites PhD researchers to explore how multispecies research is shaped by different disciplinary methods, assumptions, and challenges. Bringing together scholars from across the arts, humanities, and social sciences in a supportive environment, the event aims to create an inclusive and developmental space for sharing work, exchanging ideas, and building interdisciplinary connections.
Our call for papers is now open, closing on Friday 24th April. Find further details and the call for papers here.
The UK Animal Law Conference Opens for Registration
On 3-4th June 2026, we will be hosting the 6th annual UK Animal Law Conference for academics, lawyers, NGOs, and students, taking place at the University of Birmingham. Read about our incredible 3 keynote speakers, 70+ speakers (with more to be announced soon), our sponsors, and sponsorship opportunities at the conference website. Registration now open here.
Announcing the Center for Animal Law Studies inaugural International Aquaculture Law & Policy Symposium
On 5th June 2026, we will be co-hosting the inaugural International Aquaculture Law & Policy Symposium at presented by the Center for Animal Law Studies (Lewis & CLark Law School) in collaboration with Aquatic Life Institute. Full details regarding the schedule, speakers, and registration will be coming soon! Learn more about the event here.
You're Invited to Stacy Banwell's Book Launch
On 18th June 2026, Stacy Banwell will launch her new book An Intersectional Analysis of Climate Change and Atrocity Crimes: Life on Earth is in Crisis. The book is available to purchase here. You can register to attend the launch event here.
New Members
We would like to introduce you to our new members who we warmly welcomed into the collective this month. Their profiles will be live on our website very soon.
Cebuan Bliss (member)
Cebuan is an independent interdisciplinary researcher and practitioner. Cebuan holds a PhD from Radboud University, an MSc in Global Environmental Governance from Vrjie University, and a BA (Hons) in Politics and Sociology from Durham University. Cebuan is community-oriented at both an academic and personal level, facilitating knowledge exchange between different human and non-human groups, centring multispecies flourishing, co-being, and co-learning. Ceuban is currently designing and implementing his own project - an interspecies co-learning community and research centre - where academics and others working towards multispecies flourishing can visit to learn with and from other animals.
Dr Christina Easton (member)
Christina is an Assistant Professor in the Ethics of Non-Violence at the University of Birmingham. Christina has broad research interests in moral and political philosophy, but is particularly interested in the ethical treatment of animals and the implications for public policy and social institutions. Christina is keen for her theoretical work to bring about societal change, and has a strong record of public engagement and impact work. Christina's current projects include a project promoting plant-based diets in schools and a work-in-progress paper resisting current attitudes towards companion animal euthanasia.
Isabel Stanley (member)
Isabel is a first-year, ESRC-funded PhD student at the University of Birmingham, based in the School of Government, Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) but with interdisciplinary supervision from POLSIS and the School of Biosciences. Prior to starting her PhD, Isabel worked as a project manager, primarily managing large-scale, multi-million-pound research projects within academia and the charity sector. Isabel also volunteers with the Canine Partners’ Research Working Group. Her educational background is in International Studies (BA Hons) and Policy Analytics (MSc). Isabel's PhD project is titled 'Animal Citizenship: are UK assistance dogs performing 'Acts of Citizenship'?'.
Dr Elizabeth O’Connor (affiliate member)
Elizabeth is an independent researcher and writer whose work explores the entanglements between humans, animals, and the landscapes we share. After completing a PhD in English Literature at the University of Birmingham, Elizabeth shifted her research into creative writing, drawing on ecocritical approaches to examine how identity, ecology, and myth intersect. Her debut novel Whale Fall (Picador/Pantheon, 2024) received international recognition and has been translated into thirteen languages. Alongside creative practice, Elizabeth works in Researcher Development at the University of Birmingham. Her current project investigates human–animal relationships through the lens of competitive dog shows and contemporary kinship. Elizabeth's work sits at the intersection of creative practice, ecocriticism, and multispecies studies. Across both her academic and creative research, she investigates how human identities and emotional lives are shaped through our relationships with nonhuman beings and the environments we inhabit.
New Resources
New resources available on our website to read and watch.
Re(launch) event welcome talk
Presentation recording: Colette Schefer-Peisker: Mandatory Video Surveillance in English and Swiss Slaughterhouses
Recent Events
In case you missed it! Here's a recap of the events we hosted in March.
The Multispecies Collective (Re)launch Event
To mark the (re)launch of the Multispecies Collective and Birmingham Law School as its new host institution, a re(launch) event took place on the 5th of March to bring together the Collective's collaborators to discuss multispecies flourishing in all its forms. The event was full of inspiration, conversation, and celebration over the collective's shared commitment to cultivating more compassionate, relational, and imaginative multispecies futures.
Paula Sparks World Moot in International Law and Animal Rights 2nd Edition
We hosted the Paula Sparks World Moot on International Law and Animal Rights from March 10th–12th at Birmingham Law School. Read the news feature here.
The Paula Sparks Moot is the world’s first global competition in legal advocacy and policy negotiation focused on animal rights, accompanied by a series of specialised training programmes. It brings together traditional legal and policy frameworks with contemporary animal rights issues, equipping future practitioners with the skills needed to promote balanced protections for all life. Through its competitions and training courses, the initiative fosters expertise in both policy negotiation and legal advocacy.
Speakers at the moot included Anees Ahmed, Chief of the Rule of Law and Security Institutions at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, Karla Andrade Quevedo, Vice President of the Constitutional Court of Ecuador, and Professor David Bilchitz, former Acting Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
Multispecies Collective Dialogue Series
In March two dialogues took place as part of the Multispecies Collective Dialogue series with Colette Schefer-Peisker and Guilherme De Azevedo, shining a spotlight on their research toward multispecies flourishing.
You can read about Guilherme's project here.
Multispecies Collective Reading Group
We hosted our regular reading group on 24th March. This time, our theme was 'The Non-Human Rights Project: Animal Rights, Habeas Corpus, and Critiques of the So-Like-Us Approach. If you would like to join our next reading group session June, we will share the registration link on our events page soon and via our mailing list.
Thank you!
We have met so many wonderful people enthusiastic about multispecies flourishing this month, and we're really encouraged by the meaningful work being done in this regard in various sectors. Thank you for engaging with us this month and we hope to see many of you at our upcoming events.
The Multispecies Collective
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