Tell your friends about ASI:
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Our Human-Animal Studies Program Director, Margo DeMello, just got back from a week at the University of Lisbon where she was the keynote speaker for and participated in, the International Summer School in Human-Animal Studies, presented by the University of Lisbon in collaboration with the University of Turku in Finland and Uppsala University in Sweden. After opening the summer school with a lecture on the state of human-animal studies today, intersectionality in HAS, and multi-species ethnography as a method, she worked, alongside of the summer school hosts Veronica Policarpo, David Redmalm, and Nora Schurmann, with the 14 graduate students on their projects.
Projects ranged from a study of sled dog-human relationships in Greenland to the benefits of companion dogs for drug addicts to study of mountain dogs in Nepal. The group also got to visit two local organizations: Casa dos Animaix de Lisboa, and Grupo Lobo, a wolf conservation organization and wolf sanctuary. Margo and Veronica also made plans for the University of Lisbon’s new HAS Hub, which ASI has helped fund through our International Development Program, and we will be sending out updates as we get them on the Hub’s projects and developments.
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HAS Defining Video Series Season 2
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We've released two additional videos as part of Season 2 of ASI’s Defining Human-Animal Studies video series. Helena Kopina
, Assistant Professor, Sustainable Business, The Hague University discusses the term Anthropocentrism and Harriet Ritvo, Professor of History at MIT discusses the term Animal Turn.
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NIH Scientific Review Group
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Since 2008, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and The WALTHAM® Centre for Pet Nutrition have collaborated in a Public-Private Partnership to encourage research on human-animal interaction (HAI). For the past 11 years the Partnership has supported research in this field by funding opportunity announcements issued by NIH.
This year, our Director of Human-Animal Programs, Dr. Lisa Lunghofer, has again been invited to serve as part of the Scientific Review Group convened by NIH to review these HAI grant applications. The objective of the grant program is to encourage interdisciplinary studies to determine the impact of HAI in and outside the home environment on child and adolescent health and development, as well as therapeutically across the lifespan, through observational studies, experiments and clinical trials. For the adult population, the objective is to build the empirical evidence base around animal-assisted interventions for those with intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities and for those in need of therapeutic and/or rehabilitative services.
These NIH grants are a critical source of funding for new and much-needed research on HAI. Participating in the review last year, was a great honor and terrific experience. Lisa is excited to participate in this year’s scientific review and contribute to the selection of high-quality research projects that will advance the HAI field and our understanding of the myriad ways human and non-human animals affect one another.
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Green Criminology
Reflection by Ken Shapiro, ASI Board President and Secretary
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Green Criminology is an emerging subfield of criminology that extends the field to include consideration as crimes acts, policies, and institutions that harm wildlife. In the current issue of
Society and Animals,
Michael Lynch examines policies of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in the context of green criminology (“To Protect and Kill: USFWS Management of Human-Wildlife Conflict, 1996-2100,” vol. 27, 2019, 174-196).
The agency has the dual and conflicting remit to protect wildlife and to protect economic and public health interests. Since 1996 the agency has killed more than 40 million animals, the majority of who are birds and other animals considered agricultural pests. Some individuals of endangered species are also killed. Among these are gray wolves, despite the fact that significant efforts (22-37% of the endangered species budget) were also made to promote gray wolf recovery. (This effort has had some success – although current administration policies are erasing the gains).
Lynch calls for greater balance of the conflicting mission, more use of nonlethal means of controlling populations, and more research on these political economic factors that are contributing to world-wide declines in wildlife.
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Kenneth Shapiro is cofounder of the Animals & Society Institute. He is founder and editor of Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies; cofounder and coeditor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science; and editor of the Human-Animal Studies book series.
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Aubrey Milatz interned with ASI during the Spring 2019 semester. During her internship, Aubrey assisted Ann Casper, copy editor of ASI’s journal, Society & Animals, with editing and formatting submissions in preparation for their publication in the journal.
Aubrey attended the University of Idaho (B.S.) where she studied psychology and music, and Canisius College (M.S.) where she studied anthrozoology. She is currently an editor for Animalia, a journal for anthroozoology/animal studies scholars that is run through Canisius College.
Aubrey’s research interests include inter- and intraspecies communication, with a focus on language and music and how they influence humans’ perceptions of other animals. She is based in Spokane, Washington.
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ASI honored beloved companions near and far on June 9th, World Pet Memorial Day. Our
Did You Know?
series shows some ways that pets have been memorialized throughout the years.
Special thanks to ASI’s Margo DeMello, author of the book
Mourning Animals
, for helping with these interesting facts.
In addition,
click here
to see articles relating to coping with companion animal loss.
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See the whole Did You Know? series on Facebook
here!
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Did you know you can shop on Amazon and support ASI?
Visit
smile.amazon.com
, choose Animals and Society as your charity, and shop. The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligible AmazonSmile purchases.
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