Events

Forthcoming:

Final Seminar of the research project will take place on Thursday 11 May from noon to 3 pm. The event will take place at University of Turku lecture hall Edu 2 (Educarium building). Key note lecture will be delivered by prof. emerita Harriet Ritvo (MIT).

Those wishing to participate via Zoom, contact hekaki@utu.fi.

Programme of the seminar:

Animals in the Age of Unsustainability

12.15-13.30 Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Industrialised Animal Exploitation Brief presentations of the main results of the research team

Taina Syrjämaa: Opening Words

Taina Syrjämaa: Animal Exploitation and Human Progress

Otto Latva: The Human Relationship with Fur Animals and Farmed Fish in Finland during the 19th and 20th Centuries

Marja Jalava: Producing Swine as Standardized Tools of the Trade in Interwar Finland (via Zoom)

Taija Kaarlenkaski: Finnish High Milk Consumption and the Technologization of Dairy Husbandry (via Zoom)

Eeva Nikkilä: The Analysis of Historical Piggeries Leads to Improved Understanding of the Potential Experiences of Pigs (via Zoom)

Janne Mäkiranta: Animal Insurance and Hazards of Farm Animals

Helinä Ääri: Interspecies Care in Finnish Egg Farming Guidebooks

Juha Haavisto: Destroying the Forest by Feeding the Herd? The Relation Between Domesticated Animals and Forestry in the Writings of A. K. Cajander in 1910s

Tuomas Räsänen: Non-Animality of Fish and the Politics of Unsustainable Baltic Fisheries

13.30-14.00 Break

14.00-15.00 Key note lecture: prof. emerita Harriet Ritvo (MIT): Compensating for Loss: Extinction, Survival, and Resurrection

Past events:

 Webinars:

Multispecies Knowledges and the Industrialization of Animal Exploitation, 2.–3.6.2021

The workshop for the book project Tunteva tuote: Näkökulmia tuotantoeläimiin ja eläinteollisuuteen was held via Zoom on May 6-7, 2020. The workshop included a keynote lecture by Karen Lykke Syse (University of Oslo): ”From farm slaughter to industrial slaughter in Norway 1870–2015: Environmental impacts and cultural change”. The lecture was open to public.

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CFP: Multispecies Knowledges and the Industrialization of Animal Exploitation
Call for Papers for the ”Multispecies Knowledges and the Industrialization of Animal Exploitation” Online Conference

The online conference will be arranged on 2 and 3 June 2021 by the research project Culture of Unsustainability. Animal Industries and the Exploitation of Animals in Finland since the Late Nineteenth Century (UnSus), University of Turku,

Keynote lectures:

Prof. Sandra Swart (Stellenbosch University, South Africa): Bloodlines and Bloodlies: Inventing Equine Breeds
Prof. Nik Taylor (Univ. of Canterbury, New Zealand): Animal Rescuers: Challenging Institutionalised Animal Violence and Abuse through Everyday Practice
The seeming growth of human wealth has been built upon the exploitation of non-human animals and animal lives have been viewed largely as a commodified matter. Consequently, industrial production has caused the death of billions of sentient beings and has had a devastating impact on the environment. In this online conference, we focus on various kinds of knowledges and knowledge production practices, which have either enabled and justified or questioned and opposed industrial exploitation of animals. Papers can focus on any kind of knowledge from science to commercial displays, from philosophical and political definitions to everyday practical knowledge of entrepreneurs, fishers, factory workers, farmers, journalists, and consumers.

We encourage a broad understanding of the theme and welcome proposals for presentations from different disciplines and fields of study, such as history, ethnology, cultural studies, sociology, and human-animal studies. Presentations may address, for example, but are not limited to, the following questions:

How has animal exploitation been justified by knowledge in different arenas in history and in the present day?
How animals have been represented in the materials that describe animal use or industrial animal production?
How scientific knowledge of animals has been constructed and entangled with other forms of knowledge, such as practical knowledge of breeding and feeding in farming-units?
What kind of knowledge has been or is constructed in the everyday relationships between humans and animals in the context of animal production?
What kind of knowledge has been offered to consumers and what has been concealed in different historical and cultural contexts?
In what ways are animals involved in the practices of knowledge production concerning industrial animal exploitation?
How those knowledge practices that question the exploitation of animals have been or are perceived in different historical, cultural, or societal areas?

Please submit your paper proposal (max 300 words), preferably as a word document, by 8 March 2021 to unsusprojekti@gmail.com. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 12 April 2021.