The Animal Turn – Details, episodes & analysis

Award-winning journalist Sandra Bartlett joins us to uncover the unsettling realities of fish farming in British Columbia with her impactful podcast, "The Salmon People." We discuss some of the social and environmental controversies surrounding salmon farming in Canada including the interconnections between wild and farmed salmon in the region, how sea lice have devastated marine populations, and the ways in which indigenous groups are resisting industry interests.  

Date Recorded: 8 May 2024

Sandra Bartlett is an award-winning journalist based in Toronto.  She worked as a producer and reporter in NPR's Investigative Unit based in Washington. In 20 plus years at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she worked around the world – from Guantanamo Bay to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Uganda, and Israel. She now produces investigative podcast series. The Poison Detectives follows how a firefighter’s wife and a corporate lawyer in different parts of the U.S. get pulled into solving separate mysteries, cows and deer haemorrhage to death in West Virginia and something that could be giving firefighters cancer. The Salmon People, the focus of this episode, tells the story of government malfeasance and industry collaboration to farm salmon on the Pacific Ocean waterways in British Columbia.  Verified: Dust Up is about the dangers of Johnson & Johnson baby powder and the risk of ovarian cancer.  

Featured:
 The Salmon People, a podcast by Sandra Bartlett.

A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming by Stephen Hume, Alexandra Morton et al.

What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe. 

The Animal Highlight, a sister podcast 

The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and Instagram

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Using Carol Gigliotti’s book “The Creative Lives of Animals” as a backdrop,  this episode explores animals and the creative process.  From the artistic intricacies of humpback whales' bubble-net feeding to the sophisticated communication skills of prairie dogs, Carol guides us through a world where animals demonstrate remarkable creativity, highlighting how they make meaning for themselves.
 

Date Recorded: 6 March 2024

Carol Gigliotti is an author, artist, animal activist, and scholar whose work focuses on the reality of animals’ lives as important contributors to the biodiversity of this planet. She is Professor Emerita of Design and Dynamic Media and Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr University of Design, Vancouver, BC. Canada. Her book, The Creative Lives of Animals, (NYU Press, 2022) challenges the current assumptions of creativity, offering a more comprehensive understanding through recognizing animal creativity, cognition, consciousness, and agency. She is the editor of the book, Leonardo’s Choice: Genetic Technologies and Animals (Springer, 2009) and the author of numerous book chapters and journal essays on animals. Her work is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Sitka Center for the Arts, and Coppermoss, among others. Gigliotti is on several international advisory boards concerned either with media or animal studies and regularly reviews books in critical animal studies. Learn more about Carol on her website. 

Featured: 

• The Animal Highlight, a sister podcast 
• Animals and Experience, season 2 of The Animal Turn Podcast
• The Creative Lives of Animals by Carol Gigliotti
• Animal Creativity and Innovation by Allison B Kaufman and James C Kaufman
• An Immense World by Ed Yong
• Adventures Among Ants by Mark Moffett
• Types of Intelligence by Howard Gardner
• Holekamp research on hyenas
• The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins by Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell
• The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Dinesh Wadiwel discusses how violence is an important concept in political theory. He outlines how violence can be intersubjective, structural, or epistemic. He delves into how violence and coercion are tools used to try and achieve domination and that there is a political imperative to call violence what it is. 

 

Date Recorded: 25 September 2023. 

 

Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel is Associate Professor in human rights and socio-legal studies at University of Sydney. He is author of Animals and Capital (Ediburgh UP, 2023), The War against Animals (Brill, 2015) and is co-editor, with Matthew Chrulew of Foucault and Animals (Brill 2017). He is also co-editor of Animals in the Anthropocene: Critical Perspectives on Non-Human Futures (Sydney UP). He is a member of the Multispecies Justice research group at the University of Sydney, and Chair of the Australasian Animal Studies Association. In addition, Dinesh is a disability rights researcher, and has recently been part of a team of researchers who have produced two reports for the Australian Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Learn more about Dinesh here. 

  

Featured: 

• Australasian Animal Studies Association
• The War against Animals by Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel
• Animals and Capital by Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel
• The Beast and the Sovereign by Jacques Derrida
• Justice and the Politics of Difference by Iris Marion Young
• Foucault and Animals edited by Matthew Chrulew and Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel 

 
Animal Highlight: European Wild Cat

The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and Instagram

Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponso

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Steve Cooke discusses the significance of philosophy in helping to foster moral imagination. Such imagination allows for conceptual development, making moral progress and political change possible. With this backdrop, Steve unpacks how the development of habitat rights for animals would be an important step in ensuring animal vital interests are protected. 

 

Date Recorded: 7 September 2023. 

 

Steve Cooke is an Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Leicester. He works on justice and nonhuman animals, and in the ethics of protest and activism. His main interests are in what a just society for human and nonhuman animal might look like, and the ethics of different ways of achieving it. He recently published What are Animal Rights For?, published by Bristol University Press. Learn more about Steve on his university profile page or connect with him on Mastodon. 
 

Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She has a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, and her research is focused on the significance of the problematization of urban animals. She was awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication for her work on the podcast. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne).

 

Featured: 

• What are Animal Rights For?  by Steve Cooke. 
• Imagined Utopias: Animals Rights and the Moral Imagination by Steve Cooke
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls
• The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard.

 

The Animal Turn is part of the  iROAR, an Animals Podcasting Network and can also be found on A.P.P.L.E, Twitter, and Instagram

T

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode, Claudia talks to Angie Pepper about cosmopolitanism. Angie explains how despite cosmopolitans having an expansive view of justice, animals are rarely accounted for. They discuss the challenges of including animals in cosmopolitan thought and mull over what animals might be entitled to.

 

Date Recorded: 24 August 2023. 

 

Angie Pepper is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Roehampton in London. Angie's philosophical background is in contemporary political philosophy, applied ethics, normative ethics, and feminist philosophy, and her recent research focuses on what we owe to other animals. She has published papers on the place of nonhuman animals in our theorising about global justice, and on what we owe to them as a matter of climate justice. She has also defended the following claims (among others): that sentient nonhuman animals have a right to privacy, that few nonhuman animals are political agents, that sentient nonhuman animals have a right to self-determination, that non-euthanasia killing in animal shelters is sometimes morally permitted, and that we shouldn't support zoos. Angie's latest projects focus on the normative significance of nonhuman animal agency; in other words, what other animals do and why it matters morally, socially, and politically. She is especially interested in whether domestication is compatible with animals' interests in self-determination and the demands of justice. Angie is a regular contributor to Justice Everywhere. You can learn more about Angie’s work on Research Gate. 

  

Featured: 

• Beyond Anthropocentricism: Cosmopolitanism and Nonhuman Animals by Angie Pepper
• What comes after entanglement by Eva Haifa Giraud
• Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets by Yi-Fu Tuan
• Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Gary Francione

Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John for the logo; Virginia Thomas for the Animal Highlight. This episode was edited by Christiaan Mentz and produced by the host Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder. 

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Claudia launches Season 6 by talking to Will Kymlicka about politics. They discuss how animals remain largely sidelined in political philosophical thought, as compared to other areas of ethics and social theory. Will delves into three different models for how to bring animals into politics: politics “on behalf of” animals, where humans represent animals; politics “by” animals, where wild animals exercise self-government; and politics “with” animals, where humans and animals do politics together and co-author decisions. As examples of joint politics, they discuss recent efforts to share power with domesticated animals in farmed animal sanctuaries, in the family and in the workplace.

 

Date Recorded: 30 September 2023. 

 

Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy in the Philosophy Department at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, where he has taught since 1998. He is the co-author with Sue Donaldson of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights, published by Oxford University Press in 2011, and now translated into German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Turkish, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, and Polish. Zoopolis argues that animals belong at the heart of democratic political theory - defending rights of citizenship for domesticated animals and sovereignty rights for wild animals – and its ideas have helped launch the recent `political turn’ in animal ethics. Will and Sue have continued developing their model of a zoopolis, and its implications for animal advocacy, legal reform, and alliances with other social justice movements. Their recent work has appeared in Politics and Animals; The Philosophy and Politics of Animal Liberation;  Journal of Animal Ethics; Canadian Perspectives on Animals and the Law; the Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies. Will co-directs the Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics research group at Queen’s University, including its postdoctoral fellowship program, and teaches courses in animals and political theory and in animals and the law. 

  

Featured: 

• Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rightsby Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka
• Doing Politics with Animals by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, forthcoming in Social Research
• Locating animals in political philosophy by Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson 

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

The Animal Turn has been shortlisted in two categories of the upcoming International Women's Awards to be held on the 6th of November 2023. You can hear the nominated clips in this episode. 

The Animal Turn was shortlisted in "Moment of Insight from a Role Model" for the conversation between Jeff Sebo and Claudia Hirtenfelder about the im/possibility of change in human-animal relations. 

It was also shortlisted in "Changing the World One Moment at a Time" for the conversation with Yamini Narayanan in which he outlines how devastating sacralisation is for women, children, and animals - particularly cows in India. 

You can learn more about the other shortlisted podcasts as well as how you can get tickets to attend the awards here: https://everybody-media.com/iwpa-shortlists-2023/

Learn more about the categories as well as the awesome people at Everybody Media, here: https://everybody-media.com/categories-2023/

Thank you for listening and your support!

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

International Women's Podcasting Awards
The Animal Turn is proud to have been shortlisted in the International Women's Podcasting Awards.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this bonus episode Claudia talks to Captain Paul Watson about the concept of interference. They discuss his recent book Hitman for the Kindness Club as well as how he uses strategies of “aggressive nonviolence” to combat what he calls “the economics of extinction.” They also touch on the destructiveness of the fishing industry and factory farming for the oceans and the future of the planet. 

 

Date Recorded: 3 October 2023. 

 

Captain Paul Watson is a marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist. Paul was one of the founding members and directors of Greenpeace. In 1977, he left Greenpeace and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He is a renowned speaker, accomplished author, master mariner, and lifelong environmentalist, Captain Watson has been awarded many honors for his dedication to the oceans and to the planet. Among many commendations for his work, he received the Genesis Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1998, was named as one of the Top 20 Environmental Heroes of the 20th Century by Time Magazine in 2000 and was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame in Washington D.C. in 2002. He was also awarded the Amazon Peace Prize by the president of Ecuador in 2007. In 2012, Captain Watson became only the second person, after Captain Jacques Cousteau, to be awarded the Jules Verne Award, dedicated to environmentalists and adventurers. In 2022, Captain Paul Watson continues his fight for marine wildlife conservation with the new Captain Paul Watson Foundation – paulwatsonfoundation.org 

 

Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She has a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, and her research is focused on the significance of the problematization of urban animals. She was awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication for her work on the podcast. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne).

 

Featured: 

• Hitman for the Kindness Club: High Seas Escapades and Heroic Adventures of an Eco-Activist by Pul Watson
• Sea of Heartbreak: An Extraordinary Account of a Newfoundland Fishing Voyage by Michael J. Dwyer. 
• What a fish knows by Jonathan Balcombe
• The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

 Thank you to

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

In this episode Claudia talks to public health expert Hope Ferdowsian about Phoenix Zones, a concept that captures places and practices that advance the rights, health, and well-being of people, animals, and our shared environments. They discuss how crises present opportunities for change as well as how humans and animal who have experienced trauma show capacities for resilience when they are afforded with liberty, autonomy, and dignity. 

Date Recorded: 21 September 2023. 

 

Hope Ferdowsian is a professor of medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and the president of Phoenix Zones Initiative, a global nonprofit that uses medical and public health expertise to advance the health and well-being of people, animals, and the planet. With over two decades as an internal medicine, preventive medicine, and public health physician, she has cared for individuals who have experienced displacement and violence, and worked on policy to address human, animal, and environmental exploitation. Her work across six continents has included consultative support for national and intergovernmental policy makers. Dr. Ferdowsian’s work has been featured through Scientific American, HuffPost, BBC, Voice of America, and other international news outlets. Many of her publications, including her book, Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives, focus on ethics, global public health, and the links between human, animal, and planetary rights, health, and well-being. 

Claudia (Towne) Hirtenfelder is the founder and host of The Animal Turn. She has a PhD in Geography from Queen’s University, and her research is focused on the significance of the problematization of urban animals. She was awarded the AASA Award for Popular Communication for her work on the podcast. Contact Claudia via email (info@theanimalturnpodcast.com) or follow her on Twitter (@ClaudiaFTowne).

 

Featured: 

• Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives, by Hope Ferdowsian 
• Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce
• The Impossible Will Take a Little While by Paul Loeb

 

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.

Podcaster and philosopher Josh Milburn is on the Animal Turn to talk about his latest book and how the concept of justice is central to imagining a future world in which the rights of animals are respected. Claudia and Josh discuss the political turn in animal ethics, some of the tensions between animal rights and veganism, as well as the role cellular agriculture might play in a future zoopolitical world. 

 

Date Recorded: 6 July 2023. 

 

Josh Milburn is a Lecturer in Political Philosophy in the division of International Relations, Politics and History at Loughborough University in the UK. He is the author of Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals (2022) and Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully (2023). He is also the host of the animal studies podcast Knowing Animals.Find out more about Josh on his website and connect with him on Twitter or Instagram. 

 

Featured: 

• Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully by Josh Milburn
• Death Free Dairy? The Ethics of Clean Milk by Josh Milburn
• Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rightsby Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka
• The Future of Meat without Animals by Brianne Donaldson and Christopher Carter with a chapter by Carol Adams titled “Ethical Spectacles and Seitan Making; Beyond the Sexual Politics of Meat.”
• Putting Humans first: Why we are Nature’s Favourite by Tibor R. Machen

Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, and Jeremy John for the logo. This episode was edited by Christiaan Menz and produced by the host Claudia Towne Hirtenfelder. 

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

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

The Animal Turn is hosted and produced by Claudia Hirtenfelder and is part of the iROAR Network. Learn more on our website.

• Leave a Review on Podchaser
• Check out The Animal Turn Merch.
• Support us on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and Buzzsprout.