Journal Articles by Catherine Oliver
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 2018
Providing cost-effective, hands-on field-based experiences to large cohorts of undergraduate stud... more Providing cost-effective, hands-on field-based experiences to large cohorts of undergraduate students provides a core challenge for effective teaching and learning. This grand challenge is tackled through the construction of an exemplar outdoor learning environment within the Environmental Change Outdoor Laboratory (ECOLAB): Birmingham Bog (BB). Adjacent to the Geography building, the facility aims to produce a seamless, interconnected learning environment (in both space and time) that brings inaccessible fieldwork activities direct to the classroom at the time and frequency appropriate to the learning objectives. With the integration of this facility within a 3 rd year undergraduate module, we explore through group interviews the ways in which BB adapted and influenced students' engagement with lecture material, and the extent to which the approach can complement or replace current field based teaching activities. The group interviews identified how BB was considered an example of 'effective learning' within the context of the wider degree programme. However, if confirmed, the value placed on residential field courses cannot be met by such campus experiences. Despite this, BB represents an 1 increasingly fertile space for deeper stimulation and innovative ways of learning; diversifying pedagogical techniques and enabling students to re-engage with lecture content.
Conference Presentations by Catherine Oliver
RGS Mid-term Conference , 2017
This presentation begins with an introduction to Richard Ryder, and his archive, and how this arc... more This presentation begins with an introduction to Richard Ryder, and his archive, and how this archive can be situated in two intertwined ways. This is followed by a short exploration of the history of the animal rights movement in the UK, touching upon the entangled nature of these histories and thus the difficulties in writing and understanding them.
I then discuss the relationship formed with and within this archive, and the unique problems of contemporary archives. This is situated within an imagining of what lies beyond the archive, and how that relationship can be considered as one of ‘friendship’ and ‘befriending’. I finish by reflecting briefly on what this archive means for the animal rights movement, and how the beyond and friendship interplay with the human—animal relationship.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
Invited Talks by Catherine Oliver
The University of Warwick, 2019
Animal activism and veganism in the UK have contentious, politicised, and overlapping histories, ... more Animal activism and veganism in the UK have contentious, politicised, and overlapping histories, which continue to shape the perceptions of and the work of vegan activists, for now and for the future. This talk opens by focussing not on when these histories began, but rather why and how animal activism began, contextualising veganism not as a diet, but rather a ‘philosophy and way of living that excludes the use of animals’ (Donald Watson, founder of The Vegan Society). Veganism is thus understood as the rejection of ‘speciesism’ and the hierarchy of beings, whilst simultaneously being navigated within historical and contemporary understandings of animal ‘rights’.
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, veganism is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond these stories,this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals, and how we can return to history to better practice veganism and activism
Human Geography Seminar Series, University of Birmingham, 2019
Animal activism and veganism in the UK have contentious, politicised, and overlapping histories, ... more Animal activism and veganism in the UK have contentious, politicised, and overlapping histories, which continue to shape the perceptions of and the work of vegan activists, for now and for the future. This talk opens by focussing not on when these histories began, but rather why and how animal activism began, contextualising veganism not as a diet, but rather a ‘philosophy and way of living that excludes the use of animals’ (Donald Watson, founder of The Vegan Society). Veganism is thus understood as the rejection of ‘speciesism’ and the hierarchy of beings, whilst simultaneously being navigated within historical and contemporary understandings of animal ‘rights’.
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, it is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond the archive, this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals.
Embodying Geographies: Research intensive diversity work; University of Birmingham, , 2017
In 1902, Lizzie Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa Schartau, Swedish-British feminist activists, enrolled o... more In 1902, Lizzie Lind-af-Hageby and Leisa Schartau, Swedish-British feminist activists, enrolled on a medical course at the London School of Medicine for Women at UCL. They were not, however, medical students in the sense that we might expect. Rather, they became one of the earliest undercover exposers of animal abuses in the name of ‘science’. In their book, the Shambles of Science, the story of the brown dog is re-told. They first met the little brown terrier in December 1902, when Professor William Bayliss undertook the first vivisection on the brown dog, cutting open his abdomen to demonstrate a medical procedure on his pancreatic duct.
In this paper, I question how the little brown dog was made to matter: when, where, how and to whom.
Papers by Catherine Oliver
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written and published originally for The British Library's Archiving Activism website
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written & published originally on The British Library's Archiving Activism website.
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written & published originally on The British Library's Archiving Activism website.
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written & published originally on The British Library's Archiving Activism website.
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written & published originally on The British Library's Archiving Activism website.
The British Library: Archiving Activism, 2018
Written & published originally on The British Library's Archiving Activism website.
RGS-IBG Annual Conference , 2019
This paper is concerned with encountering animals actually and imaginarily, when the other is onc... more This paper is concerned with encountering animals actually and imaginarily, when the other is once (or twice) removed from the ‘human-in-the-field’. Working not with endangered, but ‘everyday’ animals and their ‘representatives’, vegans, the field of this research becomes the mundane: supermarkets, restaurants, home. Working with vegans and veganism in archival and ethnographic encounters with animals and activists, the entanglements of the personal, collective, and the planetary are understood through a construction of the ‘beyond’ as a site for critical inquiry: beyond archives, beyond animal, and beyond the present, to history and to the future.
Thinking with veganism works in the mode of ‘staying with the human trouble’ through and with those bearing witness to suffering: those navigating their worlds in less violent, and more hopeful, beliefs and practices of ‘truth’. Here, the ‘body’ is where the field begins, as the medium through which we must understand plural and entangled pasts, presents, and futures. Following Yancy, the body is constructed here as a contingency, a ‘battlefield’, constantly remade, across history and space, extended to more-than-human bodies. This historical and contemporary engagement with animal activism seeks to open the beyond as a space for relational connections between 'here-and-now’, and ‘there-and-then’, and between subjects and objects, for a re-imagining of the future of and with veganism as an ethico-political practice. This paper asks if the relationship between somatic and proximal closeness with and towards the ‘more-than-human’ through embodiment and pain may offer re-imaginings of uncertain futures.
RGS-IBG Annual Conference , 2017
In this paper, I will discuss how an archive can act as an object of friendship to form a relatio... more In this paper, I will discuss how an archive can act as an object of friendship to form a relationship with the subject(s) beyond it. The knowledges of this presentation originate from, and were formed in working with, the archive of philosopher, psychologist, and animal rights activist Richard Ryder at the British Library.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
It is here that I seek to demonstrate how the intricate and hidden, coinciding and distinct, histories of animal rights can capture the changing ways of enacting care through activism, their effectiveness, and their potential for transforming human—animal relationships.
I will also consider the absences, silences, and secrets that create and shape the archive of animal rights. Here, I present the importance, methodologically and theoretically, of archives in furthering our empathy for, or towards, animals, and the potential of considering historical knowledges in furthering our current lived practices.
Finally, I will reflect upon how friendship is central to the relationship beyond the archive, by considering what ‘friendship’ can mean within human—animal relationships, in its politics, practice and indeed the meaning of such a concept when extended to the (non-human) Other.
RGS-IBG Annual Conference , 2017
Archives are physical containers of histories and therefore social and cultural knowledges of all... more Archives are physical containers of histories and therefore social and cultural knowledges of all kinds. “Raw” archives are thus containers of messy and disordered knowledges which, through different processes and logics of archiving are constructed, ordered, and stored in specific ways. Yet these logics differ in their approaches and can be ordered in different ways. As Farge (2013) writes ‘the reality of the archive lies not only in the clues it contains, but also in the sequences of different representations of reality’ (30). This presentation examines these processes of translation, from messiness to order, through focussing on one specific box, of several dozen in the archive of philosopher, psychologist, and animal rights activist Richard Ryder (b. 1940), held at the British Library which forms part of the British Library’s ‘Richard Ryder Archive’. The box is taken here as a visual representation of the infinite imaginaries and realities contained within this archive, and it is used here to consider the absences, silences, and secrets that create and shape archives, through process and engagement. I contextualise this in relation to the dominant knowledges and histories of the animal rights movement in the UK, to understand the place of this specific archival knowledge creation, within the wider networks, politics, and emotional engagements within which it is situated.
Doctoral Research Conference, University of Birmingham, 2017
In this paper, I discuss how an archive can act as an object of friendship to form a relationship... more In this paper, I discuss how an archive can act as an object of friendship to form a relationship with the subject(s) beyond it. The knowledges of this presentation originate from, and were formed in working with, the archive of philosopher, psychologist, and animal rights activist Richard Ryder at the British Library. Through this archive, I engage in a “more- than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive. It is here that I seek to demonstrate how the intricate and hidden, coinciding and distinct, histories of animal rights can capture the changing ways of enacting care through activism, their effectiveness, and their potential for transforming human—animal relationships. I will also consider the absences, silences, and secrets that create and shape the archive of animal rights. Here, I present the importance, methodologically and theoretically, of archives in furthering our empathy for, or towards, animals, and the potential of considering historical knowledges in furthering our current lived practices. Finally, I will reflect upon how friendship is central to the relationship beyond the archive, by considering what ‘friendship’ can mean within human—animal relationships, in its politics, practice and indeed the meaning of such a concept when extended to the (non-human) Other.
This prize was given an award for excellence in oral presentations.
International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network, 2016
This paper considers the similar representational, analogical, and physical experiences of women ... more This paper considers the similar representational, analogical, and physical experiences of women across species, through the intersubjective stories of the chicken, cow, and human in our current society. Presenting a narrative from the lives of an individual from each of these species, women and animals are inescapably entwined through theories of the transcendence of the subject/object distinction (Kristeva, 1980; Adams, 1990). This paper considers the incarceration of women across species as ingrained in our current society, based around their exploitation and the processes of sexualisation and consumption of women’s bodies in all their forms. There follows a move to consider the problematic construction of humanity as agentic, and the animal as non-agentic (c.f. Latour, 2005), and the wider gender implications of this in terms of the embodiment of personhood of animals and humans. The paper draws upon anarcho-feminist ideas of the “new woman question” (Darity, 2012), and how the incorporation of anarchist principles and consciousness of ‘other’ into theories of animal agency could extend moral community to the animal, and consider a starting point for theorisation of the ‘more-than-woman’, as distinct from the more-than-human.
RGS-IBG Annual Conference, 2016
Animal Agency: Language, Politics, Culture, University of Amsterdam, 2016
Human—animal relationships do not currently consider the weighting of benefits to the researcher,... more Human—animal relationships do not currently consider the weighting of benefits to the researcher, versus the “recipients” of research. There are multitudes of ethical implications when working on behalf of animals and there are perhaps even more complex issues surrounding the speaking for others who we cannot always understand. The improbability of creating a space for animals to speak will be addressed in this paper, as will our inability to understand their voices, and how we can, through ethically informed and considerate research, work to combat this.
The presence of a human voice for animals is inescapable, but the possibilities of this are varied. This paper will consider who has the right to speak on the behalf of non-humans, and how best animals can be represented both in academia and in public space. This paper will uncover the issues surrounding this human intermediary, drawing on feminist and postcolonial discourses, and consider how best this can be practiced. This will begin first by extending the principles of feminist research practice to non-humans, before theorising what a ‘vegan-feminist’ approach could be. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the extent to which it is possible for animals to be actors in social and political arenas dominated by the human, and theorising how we can co-exist within research and movements dedicated to animal liberation. This paper serves to address the moral positioning of the non-human in our communities, and to explore how we can address these often-uncomfortable topics that force us to foreground our human privilege in a speciesist world, and search for ways to redress the power relations and minimise the exploitation of the researched.
RGS Mid-term Conference, 2016
This paper, using vegetarian-feminist theory , problematizes ‘more-than-human’, ‘non-human’ and ‘... more This paper, using vegetarian-feminist theory , problematizes ‘more-than-human’, ‘non-human’ and ‘post-human’ approaches in human geography. Specifically, the paper explores vegan-feminist activism as a movement that incorporates all beings into their liberatory actions, which raises issues for its place in wider social justice movements who focus on single-issue campaigns. For vegan-feminists, the parallel oppressions of women and animals are maintained because of one another (Adams, 1990) in a matrix of domination that underpins all oppression.
Uploads
Journal Articles by Catherine Oliver
Conference Presentations by Catherine Oliver
I then discuss the relationship formed with and within this archive, and the unique problems of contemporary archives. This is situated within an imagining of what lies beyond the archive, and how that relationship can be considered as one of ‘friendship’ and ‘befriending’. I finish by reflecting briefly on what this archive means for the animal rights movement, and how the beyond and friendship interplay with the human—animal relationship.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
Invited Talks by Catherine Oliver
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, veganism is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond these stories,this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals, and how we can return to history to better practice veganism and activism
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, it is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond the archive, this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals.
In this paper, I question how the little brown dog was made to matter: when, where, how and to whom.
Papers by Catherine Oliver
Thinking with veganism works in the mode of ‘staying with the human trouble’ through and with those bearing witness to suffering: those navigating their worlds in less violent, and more hopeful, beliefs and practices of ‘truth’. Here, the ‘body’ is where the field begins, as the medium through which we must understand plural and entangled pasts, presents, and futures. Following Yancy, the body is constructed here as a contingency, a ‘battlefield’, constantly remade, across history and space, extended to more-than-human bodies. This historical and contemporary engagement with animal activism seeks to open the beyond as a space for relational connections between 'here-and-now’, and ‘there-and-then’, and between subjects and objects, for a re-imagining of the future of and with veganism as an ethico-political practice. This paper asks if the relationship between somatic and proximal closeness with and towards the ‘more-than-human’ through embodiment and pain may offer re-imaginings of uncertain futures.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
It is here that I seek to demonstrate how the intricate and hidden, coinciding and distinct, histories of animal rights can capture the changing ways of enacting care through activism, their effectiveness, and their potential for transforming human—animal relationships.
I will also consider the absences, silences, and secrets that create and shape the archive of animal rights. Here, I present the importance, methodologically and theoretically, of archives in furthering our empathy for, or towards, animals, and the potential of considering historical knowledges in furthering our current lived practices.
Finally, I will reflect upon how friendship is central to the relationship beyond the archive, by considering what ‘friendship’ can mean within human—animal relationships, in its politics, practice and indeed the meaning of such a concept when extended to the (non-human) Other.
This prize was given an award for excellence in oral presentations.
The presence of a human voice for animals is inescapable, but the possibilities of this are varied. This paper will consider who has the right to speak on the behalf of non-humans, and how best animals can be represented both in academia and in public space. This paper will uncover the issues surrounding this human intermediary, drawing on feminist and postcolonial discourses, and consider how best this can be practiced. This will begin first by extending the principles of feminist research practice to non-humans, before theorising what a ‘vegan-feminist’ approach could be. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the extent to which it is possible for animals to be actors in social and political arenas dominated by the human, and theorising how we can co-exist within research and movements dedicated to animal liberation. This paper serves to address the moral positioning of the non-human in our communities, and to explore how we can address these often-uncomfortable topics that force us to foreground our human privilege in a speciesist world, and search for ways to redress the power relations and minimise the exploitation of the researched.
I then discuss the relationship formed with and within this archive, and the unique problems of contemporary archives. This is situated within an imagining of what lies beyond the archive, and how that relationship can be considered as one of ‘friendship’ and ‘befriending’. I finish by reflecting briefly on what this archive means for the animal rights movement, and how the beyond and friendship interplay with the human—animal relationship.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, veganism is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond these stories,this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals, and how we can return to history to better practice veganism and activism
Moving through to the contemporary vegan movement, this talk will be situated within the context of 2019 as the ‘year of the vegan’ (The Economist). Amidst this surge and mainstreaming of veganism, I ask whether rather than resisting violent hierarchies, structures, and powers, it is being co-opted by them: is veganism becoming not radical nor resistance, but part of the very things it opposes?
History, present, and futures, as they have always done, refuse to remain separate: overlapping, shaping and creating one another’s meanings over and over again. Drawing on archival research, interviews and ethnographic research with vegans, this talk will work to centre vegan understandings of not only history, but of activism, practices, and of futures. By reaching beyond the archive, this research calls for a move to working in the mode of ‘as if’ between human and animal, to understand how vegans adopt this imaginary in their approach to activism with and for animals.
In this paper, I question how the little brown dog was made to matter: when, where, how and to whom.
Thinking with veganism works in the mode of ‘staying with the human trouble’ through and with those bearing witness to suffering: those navigating their worlds in less violent, and more hopeful, beliefs and practices of ‘truth’. Here, the ‘body’ is where the field begins, as the medium through which we must understand plural and entangled pasts, presents, and futures. Following Yancy, the body is constructed here as a contingency, a ‘battlefield’, constantly remade, across history and space, extended to more-than-human bodies. This historical and contemporary engagement with animal activism seeks to open the beyond as a space for relational connections between 'here-and-now’, and ‘there-and-then’, and between subjects and objects, for a re-imagining of the future of and with veganism as an ethico-political practice. This paper asks if the relationship between somatic and proximal closeness with and towards the ‘more-than-human’ through embodiment and pain may offer re-imaginings of uncertain futures.
Through this archive, I engage in a “more-than-human methodology” that considers layered communications, between reader, donor, archive, and the animal object/subject whose welfare is at the heart of the documents within. These relationships are theorised in a consideration of what and who lies “beyond” the archive.
It is here that I seek to demonstrate how the intricate and hidden, coinciding and distinct, histories of animal rights can capture the changing ways of enacting care through activism, their effectiveness, and their potential for transforming human—animal relationships.
I will also consider the absences, silences, and secrets that create and shape the archive of animal rights. Here, I present the importance, methodologically and theoretically, of archives in furthering our empathy for, or towards, animals, and the potential of considering historical knowledges in furthering our current lived practices.
Finally, I will reflect upon how friendship is central to the relationship beyond the archive, by considering what ‘friendship’ can mean within human—animal relationships, in its politics, practice and indeed the meaning of such a concept when extended to the (non-human) Other.
This prize was given an award for excellence in oral presentations.
The presence of a human voice for animals is inescapable, but the possibilities of this are varied. This paper will consider who has the right to speak on the behalf of non-humans, and how best animals can be represented both in academia and in public space. This paper will uncover the issues surrounding this human intermediary, drawing on feminist and postcolonial discourses, and consider how best this can be practiced. This will begin first by extending the principles of feminist research practice to non-humans, before theorising what a ‘vegan-feminist’ approach could be. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the extent to which it is possible for animals to be actors in social and political arenas dominated by the human, and theorising how we can co-exist within research and movements dedicated to animal liberation. This paper serves to address the moral positioning of the non-human in our communities, and to explore how we can address these often-uncomfortable topics that force us to foreground our human privilege in a speciesist world, and search for ways to redress the power relations and minimise the exploitation of the researched.
become objectified just enough to occupy the carceral condition, transforming the subject into something that cannot return.
Panel members:
John Allen (The Open University, UK)
Sarah Radcliffe (University of Cambridge, UK)
Susan J. Smith (University of Cambridge, UK)
Gill Valentine (University of Sheffield, UK)
Across many Minority World countries *veganism has risen in mainstream popularity in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. At the same time academic interest in the potentially radical possibilities that are rooted in veganism and vegan praxis continue to gain both in momentum and visibility. Critical approaches across a number of social-science disciplines, for example, have created a dynamic critical animal studies literature, one which has increasingly exposed the profound anthropocentric and speciesist limits of what constitutes “critical thinking”, and indeed critical scholarship. Found in the rich and fertile soils cultivated by critical animal geographies in particular (Collard and Gillespie, 2018), the seeds of veganism that had been carefully scattered by a handful of scholars are now beginning to bear fruit. Indeed, if the number of key publications (Hodges et al, 2022; Sexton, et. al 2022) are anything to go by, history may well record 2022 as the year that Vegan Geographies well and truly arrived in the discipline.
In this context, this call for papers comes at a particularly exciting yet precarious moment. Exciting because we stand at a time when new and significant inter-species imaginaries, encounters, and expressions of inter-species social and spatial justice activism have the potential to be realised. Precarious because it is impossible to underestimate the challenges that need to be successfully overcome if vegan geographies are to fulfil their radical potential(s) both within the discipline, and the world at large.