CALL FOR PAPERS: Reflecting On Our Relationships: Animals and Agriculture: A Multidisciplinary

Workshop University of Auckland, New Zealand, 18 July 2008

The Animals and Agriculture Research Group at the University of Auckland is pleased to invite your participation in a multidisciplinary one-day workshop that will explore relationships between human and non-human animals in agricultural industries. This is a field of enquiry especially resonant for the cultures, ecologies and economies of New Zealand and the broader Australasian region. A range of proposals for papers that reflect on human/animal relationships in agriculture from across the disciplinary spectrum will be welcomed. In recent years the interdependences of human and non-human animals have been subject to increasing levels of critical analysis by sociologists, historians, geographers and anthropologists, to name a few. It is hoped that this workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars from the humanities, social and life sciences, working across the breadth of agriculture-related topics, to engage and discuss some of the relevant themes in human/animal studies.

Papers might address:

Cultures and identities in livestock farming;
Veterinary and agricultural science and research, and their influences on livestock and farming;
The formulation and implementation of animal welfare policy in agriculture;
Developments in animal control, health, nutrition, diseases and biotechnologies;
Relationships between livestock, farmers, landscapes, ecologies; Livestock economies and the consumption of animal products;
Competition and cohabitation among agricultural, indigenous and ‘feral’ animals.