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S5E1: Citizen Dogs – Reimagining Canine-Human Societies

The Animal Turn 2 June 2025


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The Animal Highlight is an exciting sister podcast that serves to compliment the animal-related topics addressed in The Animal Turn podcast. Specifically, each The Animal Highlight podcast highlights the species discussed in The Animal Turn to focus and explore aspects of their lives and discuss the extraordinary and amazing attributes of such species. These 5-15 minute podcasts follow at the end of each The Animal Turn podcast hosted by Claudia Hirtenfelder.

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In this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas focuses on the domestic dog and the ways in which they might be thought of as citizens. She thinks about some of dogs’ history and discusses the work of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. 

Recorded: 18 September 2023 

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Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interactions with their environment and with other animals. Virginia’s work explores the social and ethical questions in human-animal relationships. She is currently a research fellow on the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘From Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals’ which examines the drivers and consequences of animal feeding. This leads on from her previous research which examined human-animal relations in the media (as part of zoonotic disease framing) and in rewilding projects (in relation to biopolitics and human-animal coexistence). You can connect with Virginia via Twitter (@ArbitrioHumano).

Credits:

  • Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host 
  • Virginia Thomas, script writer, narrator and co-host
  • Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
  • Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
  • Sound clips taken from: BBC Sound Effects
  • Learn more about the team here. 

 

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

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S5E9: Red Kites – Conservation and The Ethical Dilemmas of Wildlife Translocation

The Animal Turn 28 July 2025

Virginia explores how the recovery of red kites in Britain has been shaped by international efforts and cross-border collaborations between governments and NGOs. Thinking about these birds, Virginia raises questions and concerns about translocation, culture, and species conservation. Recorded: 14 December …continue

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S5E8: Wolf Rewilding – Rethinking Risk and Coexistence

The Animal Turn 21 July 2025

Virginia tells us how grey wolves are reclaiming territories across Europe and North America through a process known as auto-rewilding—autonomously returning to lands from which humans once drove them out. This powerful expression of nonhuman agency challenges our conventional approach …continue

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Proudly brought to you by: The Animal Turn 21 July 2025