In this episode Mariam Motamedi-Fraser joins us in the show to discuss ‘species story’ a concept she developed in her book Dog Politics. We discuss how the human-dog bond has been established and maintained through modern day practices and scientific discourses which have implications for how dogs can live.
Date Recorded: 31 July 2024.
Mariam Motamedi Fraser is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the interdisciplinary research group UCL Anthropocene, in the Department of Geography. Her research is located in the field of animal studies. She is particularly interested in the implications, for animals, of the concepts and theories that are deployed to ‘explain’ them in both science and non-science research. Mariam is the author of three monographs and two co-edited collections, and has published in a wide range of journals. Her most recent book, Dog Politics: Species Stories and the Animal Sciences (Manchester University Press, 2024), is a critical analysis of the idea that relationality-with-humans somehow constitutes dogs’ evolutionary destiny. The book is partly informed by her experience of volunteering at The Dog Hub, a dog training and behavioural centre in London. She is strongly committed to teaching animal studies, and to the transformative experience that learning about animals in a structured setting offers students ( m.motamedifraser@ucl.ac.uk).
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