ABIDE

Animal ABidings: recoverIng from DisastErs in more-than-human communities

ERC Consolidator Grant 2021

Principal Investigator: Verónica Policarpo

Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa

Project duration: 01.05.2023-30.04.2028

Website: abide.ics.ulisboa.pt

 

What and how can we learn from animals about recovering from disasters? How can we hear them in their own terms, translate their stories, and include their perspectives, in human knowledge about disasters? This project explores the resilience of multispecies communities, and their capacities for healing and bouncing back from disasters, through the point of view of nonhuman animals. It departs from the current context of acute climate crisis, which sets the stage for Dantesque scenarios of impending climate-driven disasters such as wildfires, floods, tornados and hurricanes, with related extensive loss of both human and nonhuman lives, liveable dwellings and species extinction. Focusing on wildfires as disasters which challenge previous expert knowledge due to climate change and human exploitation of natural resources, we propose to compare three countries where wildfires have taken on increasingly critical proportions every year: Brazil, Australia and Portugal. We address a species gap in our knowledge of disasters, and wildfires in particular, by exploring the possibilities of learning with animals how to live and cope with extreme change and uncertainty in wildfire-prone areas. Drawing on contributions from sociologists, anthropologists, ethologists, biologists and geographers, ABIDE aims at attuning to, translating and including the perspectives, experiences and stories of animals into our knowledge of how multispecies communities can better recover from the traumatic experience of wildfires. In the end, we seek to build the foundations for a new interdisciplinary framework for addressing humans’ and animals’ ability to build and abide in multispecies communities that are more resilient to wildfires and other disasters. In so doing, we aspire to identify the landmarks of a post-species episteme, and thus push forward the frontiers of knowledge of human-animal relations, as well as contribute to a more-than-human governance of disasters.

Funded by the European Union (ERC, ABIDE, Grant agreement ID: 101043231). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Verónica Policarpo

ICS-ULisboa

Verónica is a senior researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisboa (ICS-ULisboa), in the field of Human-Animal Studies. Her current research interests are focused on human-animal relationships and the construction of daily practices and bonds between human and non-human animals. She is interested in a more-than-human approach in which all living beings are considered as active collaborators in the co-construction of shared worlds. In 2022 Verónica was granted with an ERC Consolidator Grant to develop the project ABIDE – Animal Abidings: recovering from disasters in more-than-human communities (ERC, ABIDE, Grant agreement ID: 101043231, 2023-2028) . At ICS-ULisboa, Verónica coordinates, within this field of studies: the Human-Animal Studies Hub, with the support of the Animals & Society Institute and its International Development Award; the post-graduate course “Animais e Sociedade”; the “Animal Wonder – Reading Group on Human-Animal Studies; and the Webinar “The Post-Human Animal”. Previous projects addressed the media coverage of the situation of animals in disasters (“Liminal Becomings: reframing human-animal relationships in disasters” (CEECIND/02719/2017); and the relationships between children and companion animals ( “CLAN – Children-Animal’s Friendships: challenging boundaries between humans and non-humans in contemporary societies” (PTDC/SOC 28415/2017).

Link: https://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/en/pessoa/veronica-policarpo

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9245-1057

CIÊNCIA VITAE: https://www.cienciavitae.pt//C211-DB67-6F6F

Twitter: @VMPolicarpo

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