Category Archives: Uncategorized

In March 2021, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were interviewed by Oprah Winfrey about their decision to step down as working members of the British Royal Family as a result of racism in the monarchy and the media. This had taken a toll on both of their mental health and following stepping down, they haveContinue reading “Hen fever, British breeding, and royal rescues: How chickens became “royal” birds”

In Spring 2021, after ten years living in various parts of Birmingham, I moved to Cambridge for my work. I now live with my partner in a village a couple of miles north of Cambridge city, and have spent the last few months settling into our new quieter and slower pace of life. We movedContinue reading “A Critical Look at the Cows About Cambridge”

I wrote this talk for the 2021 Animal History Group Summer Conference, which was hosted online in July. The theme of the conference was Animal Archives, and I was delighted to be accepted to speak for the first time about my work in the Royal Geographical Society’s Archives amongst a fantastic line-up of speakers. InContinue reading “Labour, Collaboration, Conflict, and Discovery: Finding Animals in the Royal Geographical Society Archives (Animals of the RGS, Fieldnotes IV)”

[There will be spoilers for Netflix’s Sweet Tooth in this post] Netflix’s Sweet Tooth is marketed as ‘a perilous adventure in a post-apocalyptic world, a boy who’s half-human and half deer searches for a new beginning with a gruff protector.’ The character around whom the story centres is Gus who, we learn part-way through theContinue reading “Sweet Tooth: When Humans become Animals”

In geographical histories, there are few animals as revered as dogs, who have been vital contributors to expeditions across the world as both workers and companions. Indeed, the sled-pulling husky may be the most recognisable geographical animal to a general public. Their labour is well-known, but their ability to work for humans is not theContinue reading “Canine Geographical Workers and Companions (Animals of the RGS, Fieldnotes III)”

In this post, I discuss the feelings, navigation, and space of the digital archives. While I have done some work in online archives, such as The Vegan Society’s digitised collection, my previous archival research project was primarily in The British Library’s basement archives, feeling the gritty materiality and closeness to histories. The digital archives, asContinue reading “Working in the Digital Archives (Animals of the RGS, Fieldnotes II)”

My work in the Royal Geographical Society archives attend to animals as geographical subjects in four ways: as collaborators, labourers, in conflict, and in mapping. You might assume chickens would fall easily into these categories as in conflict or labourers, but the archives reveal that, similarly to today, chickens hold more than what meets theContinue reading “Chicken Geographies & Histories (Animals of the RGS Fieldnotes I)”